Guardian of My Soul (9 page)

Silently she set up her candles in a semicircle around her
casting area. The incense and her small talisman followed. Lastly, she pulled a
notebook and pen from the drawer in her altar and set it within easy reach of
the cushion she would sit cross legged. Throwing a final severe glance around
her small, private, magical area Sally mentally fortified herself as much as
possible.

Inside her chest she could feel the surge of adrenaline as
her inner demons cheered at her finally caving in. Even though she kept firmly
in mind the task she needed to complete and nothing more, the sheer fact she
was about to return to the darkest place that haunted her nightmares seemed
like giving that long-repressed aspect of her soul a victory. Sally took a
cleansing breath and hoped she truly was even half as strong as Kyle believed
her to be.

Knowing the time was at hand she lifted her gaze and met
Kyle’s dark blue eyes with her own.

“I shouldn’t be more than a few hours at most,” she spoke in
a low tone. “If your legs get cramped from standing here or sitting you can
always drag one of the chairs into the room. I know I don’t have to tell you to
not break my circle unless it’s an emergency.”

Kyle smiled at her soft jibe.

“I’m not a novice either, Sal,” he assured her. “I promise
to only come charging in after you when I can’t bear to wait any longer or when
I feel there is true need. I promise.”

Sally nodded seriously.

“This is our best chance, Kyle,” she repeated. “I know you’re
not happy with it, but promise you’ll give me until lunch time before you start
to fret. We need to do this. You understand that, right?”

Kyle looked at the wall for a moment and Sally’s heart
plummeted. She needed him to back her on this, but at the same time she
understood his desire to protect her. She felt the same in return for him.
After a moment his eyes closed and he sighed deeply. The faint stoop to his shoulders
told her better than any words could that he had finally resigned himself to
this.

Sally crossed over to him and laid a hand on his arm. The
leather was smooth and well broken in. Without a word their lips met hungrily
and they kissed passionately. His tongue probed her mouth and she opened for
him, needing to taste him as much as he needed to possess her.

Her hands clung to his shoulders and she felt lightheaded as
his hands closed around her, drawing her body even closer to his. Their torsos
melted together, one thick thigh pressed between her legs and Sally hitched
herself up onto him, riding him. Heat from Kyle’s body penetrated her as he
ravaged her mouth, licking and kissing her possessively.

Simultaneously they pulled apart, both gasping for breath as
her eyes slowly adjusted to the real world once again. Kyle’s touch could
transport her into another realm altogether. Sally lifted her hand and stroked
Kyle’s soft jaw tenderly.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” she promised him. Before
she could step away his hands cupped her face and he held her still.

“Wear my jacket,” he asked huskily. Sally frowned, not sure
why he had asked her something so odd. He continued before she could question
him on it.

“If you’re covered by me, surrounded by me it might help you
keep focus on what you have to return to,” he explained logically. “Also, if I
need to come for you, it will help you recognize me. Last time you were in so
deep I didn’t look like me, you were afraid at first, remember?”

Sally nodded, the firmly repressed memories of that time
never really buried far enough. Kyle had not visually looked as he did in the
real world. The darkness had a way of twisting even the most wonderful aspects
of your life when you were sunk too deeply within it.

“Okay,” she agreed tentively. Kyle shrugged out of the large
jacket and helped her slide her arms into it. It draped over her body, hung
long to reach her mid thigh. Still, the enticing scent of Kyle, spicy
sandalwood was pleasant and Sally enjoyed it.

“Make sure you keep your eye on the prize,” Kyle said more
firmly now. She recognized his tone as that of their regular pep-talk before
they flung themselves headfirst into any normal mission. “Get in, write out the
ritual and get right back out again. No flouncing about or listening to your
demons. You’re your own worst enemy, Sal. You need to remember I’m here. Your
life is out here. Don’t be fooled by any trash they talk to you about.”

“I know,” she replied with a small smile, cheered by his
words.

“Come back to me, Sal,” Kyle said softly, his heart shining
clearly in his eyes. “I’ll come in after you in a heartbeat. I don’t care what
you do or think while in there, I just need you. So please, come back to me.”

Sally threw an arm around Kyle’s shoulders and neck, pulled
herself flush with him and kissed him. All too soon she wrenched herself away,
her lips tingling from the press of his and his masculine, unique scent
surrounding her enticingly.

“I’ll return to you, I promise,” she assured him.

Before she could become any further distracted, Sally
entered her casting area. Sitting cross legged she methodically and ritually
lit her candles, then her incense. She closed her eyes to sharpen and focus her
mind. Considering it had been well over ten years since she had submerged
herself in the dark stain upon her soul she discovered returning there was
astonishingly easy.

It was almost as if the blackness within her had been
waiting too, for just such an opportunity.

Sally returned into the darkness.

Sally’s eyes were closed. She breathed slowly, focusing on
delving deeply into herself. The familiar scent of her personally made incense
gently filled her senses, comforted her even after all this time of having not
smelled it in reality at all. Never could she sense the mingled scent of
Frankincense, Sandalwood and Myrrh without thinking of these rituals of
self-discovery.

As she cleared her mind she pushed her conscious mind deeper
and deeper within herself. She didn’t need to open her eyes to know the room
was filled with the warm, flickering flames of a half dozen thick black
candles. She could picture them in her mind’s eye and it gave her further
comfort.

The familiar scent, the presence of the black candles, her
determination to focus, all helped keep her grounded. It reminded her of the
fact she was supposed to be focusing on the spell she needed to create to lure
their nemesis.

Her thoughts skittered away from the vagueness of the
traitor and focused once again on Kyle and the spell he was counting on her
making. Something clicked, and she knew it was time.

The reality of Sally disconnected, and now she was inside
herself, willingly within her mind, a separate, but still sentient being. Her
eyes fluttered open now her mind was focused and set. She’d set up the room
insider her mind, her personal landscape. She looked around, pleased at what
she saw. The candles had made it through and she let herself become entranced
by their flickering flame.

With a deeply drawn breath Sally happily realized she could
still smell the burning incense. Her inward travel was successful. Although
some of the finer details of the landscape still remained fuzzy, Sally found
herself filled with a sudden surge of dark power. The secret thrill of the
black magic she had for so long denied herself filled her body, making her skin
crackle with the power.

Nearly overwhelmed with the rush of energy she fought to
contain and control the surge, but in her heart she knew it was useless. Sally
understood that she was too far gone to resist the tempting, seductive urges
filling her every orifice right now.

As she closed her eyes once again to breathe deeply and
focus her attention, Sally’s mind filled with all manner of demons. Despite her
struggles to focus on the spell she tried to create, flashbacks of increasing
intensity filled her mind as over and over she relived all the past times—and
their consequences—of when she had been exactly here before.

The deeper her mind fell into the times past, the greater
her hunger for more dark power grew. Mouth salivating, the demons within her
heart clawed to gain control of her once more and tear their way out of her
body. Every breath for each day since she had turned her back on this heritage
of hers Sally had struggled to contain these urges. She spent every conscious
minute restraining the dark cravings and monsters.

Tonight, however, she needed both control over these
struggles but also to use them for her own new agenda.

Sally then saw clearly in her mind’s eye the image of Kyle.
Tall and lithe, built strongly with sleek muscles. Spiky blond hair and dark
blue eyes the wizard was ruggedly handsome. Seeing Kyle so clearly before her
Sally ached to reach out and touch him once again as intimately as she had only
hours earlier.

A hushed whisper came from one side of her and Sally turned
instantly. In the corner of her eye she saw a crouched, gnarled, hidden figure
just out of the range of her vision. She knew from experience exactly what this
dark figure represented and her thoughts shifted from Kyle to the reasons for
her being here.

The temptation to explore the darkness deeper, to delve into
it and release herself from her endless struggle and torment beckoned
enticingly. With a hard swallow around the lump in her throat, Sally delved
into the darkness.

For one shining, breathless moment Sally felt invincible as
the black magic surged through her body. She could see the universe in its
entirety. Before her eyes clearly was each individual cell and organism as they
created the pattern and rhythm of life.

The world opened to her, right there on the edges of her
fingertips.

And then Kyle’s voice came out to her, resounding around her
entire world.

“You need to focus, Sally,” he said. She recognized his
voice instantly, the calm, intractable perfection of his tone. Nothing ever
flustered the wizard, even in the hardest, most deadly of situations his voice
always soothed her and sounded so placid, his faith unshakeable. This time
however, she noticed something new. There was a tone in his voice, it resonated
deeply with her soul. She could hear his love for her, and his crisp words
helped pull her back.

They loved each other. They’d shared magic, been as intimate
as two people could be.

“You need to do what you promised, Sal. Don’t be distracted.
I know you’re strong enough to do this. Please, Sally. Do it and come back to
me.”

With the world open at her fingertips, Sally suddenly could
see clearly for the first time since she had embraced her darkest pockets. Kyle
stood before her, her partner, lover and very best friend. His dark blue eyes
burned into her, silently reminding her to do what she promised. Kyle urged her
deeper, moved her onward. She knew she could not fail or the consequences would
be dire.

Seeing Kyle before her, in a heartbeat’s pause she suddenly
knew what he was about to say. Sally held up her hand to stop him and tilted
her head, mentally grasping for the knowledge just barely out of reach.
Something was just there on the very tip of her consciousness.

“Go on,” Kyle urged her, nodding to the candles and the thin,
smoky curls of the incense. “You’ll come back to me, you always do. And you
know that if you don’t, I’ll come for you. I always come for you, don’t I, Sal?”

It was his nickname of Sal that jogged the memory. No one
but Kyle could ever call her Sal. The moniker was a private thing between them
and the soft endearment brought clearly to focus what was happening.

Her dream from the night before.

It hadn’t been a dream, or the solidification of old
temptations and fresh worries.

It had been a premonition, a guidance to what was occurring
right now. No wonder this all seemed so very familiar. Sally felt lost,
confused. Was her dream sent to warn her? Push her in another direction?

She was positive she had lived through this in her mind, but
what importance did that hold for her now? The shadowy demons clung to the
edges of her vision. Imps that remains only in her peripheral vision and were
not solid enough to come right out just yet.

A part of Sally knew they would all too soon crawl out of
the corners even the shadows cast from the candles. They’d be right before her.
Living flesh, or as good as.

Her heart sped up in mingled fear and excitement. It was the
demons who had always led and tempted her, shown her the path she had so
willingly followed before.

Hadn’t she moved past all this though? Then why had she come
back if not to seek knowledge, to gain more power and magic?

“I’m not here for you,” she called out, determined to fight
the darkness and not give herself into it.

“Of course you’re here for us,”
a number of voices
spoke simultaneously from the corners of her vision. “
The reasons you gave
out there were only a means to an end. You have desired to return since the
moment you left. Come here to us, we can show you each of your most secret
desires. Stay with us, you do not need the other world anymore.
”

Sally had begun to move toward the demons—who had started to
materialize stronger, the shadows lengthening to encompass much of the
landscape around her—before she recognized what she was doing. Halting
immediately she squeezed her hands into fists, closed her eyes tightly shut and
struggled for control of herself.

“Why fight it?”
the voices whispered enticingly to
her.
“You’re here now. You came here so willingly and eagerly. Why not
strengthen your power just for a bit while you’re here? They don’t need you
back there.”

Sally’s heart sank as the words seeped into her soul. Ever
since her return she had been an outsider, viewed with suspicion and more than
a little pity. True, she had never been the same, never been whole, but that
didn’t lessen the hurt from the sting of glances and whispered comments behind
her back.

What good was resisting when it only made her life so much
harder? Why not stay here, grow in power and return a thousand times more
potent in her magic? Show them all that stupid little Sally Bowry was a force
to be reckoned with?

“Yesssss,”
the voices urged her.

Sally pressed her lips together and once again stepped
forward, only to pause as she heard her name shouted.

“Sally!”

Unlike the demons, this voice was familiar. It brought a
deep sense of comfort and security to her. Frowning Sally turned around only to
see a faint but recognisable vision of Kyle far into the distance.

“Kyle?” she asked, her hand lifting to her lips as they once
again tingled with the remembered thrill of his parting kiss. His scent
overwhelmed her, musky, spicy, utterly masculine. The supple feel of
skin-warmed leather surrounded her along with his light fragrance of
sandalwood. In a rush, Sally recalled the beloved leather jacket he had
insisted she take with her, still wrapped around her body.

“Come back to me, Sal,” his words echoed in her head.
Vision-Kyle’s lips didn’t move, he simply continued to stare at her hungrily,
pleading with her simply with his eyes.
“I don’t care what you do or think
while in there, I just need you. So please, come back to me.”

Sally looked down into her hands as she felt the remembered
presence of the pen and notebook. The shadows receded. The demons lost the
tightness of their grip upon her. She could still feel them just on the edges
there. Solid. Real. Waiting there in the shadows for her.

But with Kyle’s scent surrounding her, his words in her
mind, his plea for her to return to him deeply embedded in her heart Sally sat
down cross-legged and focused her mind on her task. The demons still whispered
softly in her ear. Tempting her. Offering her every desire of her darkest dreams.

Sally blocked it out as much as she could and built her
whole attention slowly up around the desire to write out a ritual that would
tempt their nemesis. At first she struggled to have a clear purpose in mind.
Yes, she wanted a ritual, but unlike normal she didn’t know what words, meaning
or purpose she needed it for.

Their enemy was like the shadows surrounding her. Ill-defined,
unclear and largely unknown. Panic loomed, threatened her peace of mind as
Sally struggled to work out just what sort of spell she should cast.

“We can tell you,”
the dark corners of her mind
insisted. Sally’s initial impulse was to resist, her confidence building along
with her strength to resist the darker urges.

Kyle believed she could do this, he had absolute faith in
her. Sally wasn’t going to let her past overshadow her life anymore. Sally
probed the edges of her conscious mind, seeking a general but powerful dark
spell. Slowly opening herself inch by inch she controlled just how much she
began to listen to the ever-present whispers around her.

Her attention wavered from word to word, at first listening
to one thread, then the next, and then another all together. Sally broke the
hold each temptation held out to her until she found one that resonated deeply
within her soul. The words were twisted and filled with evil intent.

She shuddered just hearing the tone of voice the demon
whispered to her in.

After a moment she raised her hand to start scratching words
and symbols blindly out onto the notebook as they came to her. Struggling hard
to disassociate herself with the ritual blossoming before her eyes, Sally tried
to write unconsciously, to take as little of the darkness within her as
possible.

Time seemed to morph around her. Even had she been forced to
she couldn’t have hazarded a guess whether a few seconds, minutes or hours
might have passed.

Time ceased to matter or make any impact upon her. Sally
wrote and wrote, as unconscious to the meaning and consequences of her words as
possible. Finally the hissing voice paused and Sally snapped back as if she had
been in a trance. Dozens of pages had been filled in her small, neat script.

Her eyes blurred as they scanned briefly over the notes she
had been given. She didn’t thoroughly read the words but merely glanced over
them and her stomach rolled with disgust for what she had channeled.

Repulsion washed over her as a full understand of what she
had wrought sank into her mind.

Sally had written a soul-binding spell. Varying forms had
been frequently corrupted, manipulated and otherwise used in banned versions of
enforced love potions. This was the root of such spells. A spell that could
enslave the soul, snare the senses and chain a living will to the purpose the
caster decided.

In the wrong hands such a spell even in part could be
catastrophic. The wording and intent behind the ingredients and carrying out of
such a ritual made it impossible for anyone—regardless of power or age—to
defend themselves against it.

Bending over double, Sally dry retched, nausea rolling over
her as the full ramifications of what she had done overwhelmed her. She dropped
her pen and held the papers in her hands, about to tear them into pieces and
destroy such knowledge.

“No!” screamed the hissing voice. The vehemence behind the
single cry gave Sally pause, but she shook her head, the faint manipulative
push ending as soon as it had snared her.

“Do not be a fool. You need something this potent to trap
your nemesis,”
the voice insisted chillingly. Sally shook her head, her
arms trembling with indecision.