I stood and took in the rest of the room. A closet in the corner of the room was half opened. A few black robes hung inside, but the door wasn’t open enough for me to see anything else.
The walls were stuffed with books. Lots and lots of books. I watched where I placed my feet as I went around the circle. As I stepped on a half-rotten floorboard, a loud creak sounded.
I paused, waiting to see if I could hear anything, but the house was still silent.
I wiped my palms along my jeans and stepped closer to the bookshelves along the back wall. Some of the books looked like the ones at my cousins’. Others were in a language I’d never seen before. I’d been careful not to touch anything so far. I’d been even more careful not to have a vision here. From the state of things, I had a feeling this room held more than I ever wanted to see. But holding back was a chickenshit move, especially when I’d come here to gather proof.
What should I touch?
I glanced back at the altar. The dead chicken’s head lolled, revealing the deep slit along its throat. With the picture next to it…I couldn’t think of many things more horrible.
I swallowed and turned back to the walls. I closed my eyes, held out my hand, and let my gut instincts take charge. Blindly, I reached for whatever I could.
Flashes of dark and light. Smells of death. Decay. Burning things. Rotting.
It was too dark to see anything. Too quiet.
And then there was a voice. It sang and my heart sped.
I didn’t have to know Latin to know this was bad. The tune, the cadence, told me everything I needed to know. I made out the word ‘Satani’ and chills ran along my skin.
The scent of sulfur filled my senses. It was suddenly hot. Scorching. It felt like I was baking alive. Burning.
I screamed and threw what I was holding.
A knife. It spun into the closet as I ran for the door.
I wasn’t thinking as I fled the house, leaving the door to Luciana’s craft room wide open. I didn’t care about getting caught anymore. I just needed to be gone.
The feeling that I would never be clean after touching that knife filled me.
That smell. Sulfur. The scent of hell.
Were demons real? Could Luciana call one to her?
Even if she could, why would she?
I was halfway to my cousins’ house before I slowed down. I hadn’t noticed if anyone had seen me leaving or was following behind.
As I hit the front stoop of their house, a realization hit me and even in the Texas heat, I was cold.
Daniel had to know his mom was doing black magic.
He seemed to be on our side, but why wasn’t he doing more to stop her? He hadn’t told us about it. Or at least he hadn’t told me about it, but there was no way he could be oblivious of that kind of evil in his own home.
Was he fooling us all? Was he really siding with Luciana?
I crashed down on the couch in the living room. The floral print that I’d found hideous before now seemed positively charming. I’d take anything over a black lacquered floor.
“Who’s here?” Claudia said as she walked down the stairs. “Oh. Are you okay?”
I grunted, not lifting my head from the couch. “Not really.” My voice was muffled from the cushions.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
I shook my head. “I think I saw a little sliver of Hell just now.”
She sat on the chair next to me. “What do you mean?”
I didn’t look at Claudia. “I decided to sneak into Luciana’s house.”
“You did what?” She yelled.
“I went into her craft room.” I finally met Claudia’s wide-eyed gaze. “Did you know she was practicing dark magic?”
She opened and closed her mouth a few times before speaking. “I had my suspicions. Her aura is really dark. Black as pitch. But I didn’t want to really believe.”
“You don’t have to believe. You don’t need to take it on faith. I found a gris-gris in my box spring. That’s what was giving me the nightmares. I’m leaving, but I wanted some more evidence first, so I went there hoping for…” I shuddered. I hadn’t even thought to bring anything with me. I’d just run. “There’s an upside-down pentagram on her floor and a dead chicken on her altar. Plus a picture of me and Dastien wrapped in what I think might be my own hair. But that’s not the worst of it.”
“What’s the worst?”
“I had a vision while touching some sort of ritual knife—”
“There are a lot of ritual knives. That doesn’t mean that this one was bad.”