Bewitching Alice part 2 (ebook short)

A coven in mourning.
A witch betrayed.

Alice returns from the failed rescue attempt of the High Priestess to find her once predictable world more unstable than ever. The only solid relationship she has left is with Victor - a lover she craves, but cannot fully trust.

His touch leaves her aching to keep him near.
A series of strange events give her no choice.

She cannot turn away now.

1947

The house was quiet as Alice eased the front door shut behind her, almost eerily so. She tucked her hair behind one ear, listening, but there was nothing. No voices, no arguing, no footsteps. Nothing. The air inside was oppressive and rife with magic. Not unusual for the home of the High Priestess of a coven, except for one thing: Alice could practically taste the tainted scent of forbidden magic, dark and overpowering. It made it hard for her to breathe.
Exchanging a weighted glance with Victor, they carefully and quietly made their way through the foyer to the archway that led into the main living area.
As they approached the room, Victor tucked her protectively behind him, and slowly peeked around the corner. Alice found this quite amusing, but let him do it. A second later, he shook his head, and they preceded to the kitchen at the back of the house where they’d first met. Again, no one was there.
“The bedroom.” Alice kept her voice to a bare whisper. Taking Victor by the hand, and trying hard not to be distracted by the delicious tingle that rose up her arm and spread throughout her body from the contact, she pulled him down the opposite hall toward her aunt and uncle’s bedroom. No one was there, either.
“Do you have any idea where they could be?” Victor kept his voice down, but didn’t bother whispering. It was becoming obvious no one else was in the house.
“Give me a second.” Walking back out to the main room, she ascended the steps to the raised living area and went to stand in the center of the room. Closing her eyes, she tuned everything else out and let her connection with her aunt come to the fore. It was difficult to explain what she was doing, so she didn’t try. But she could “feel” the High Priestess if she really tried. Like her ability to send her energy into others, it wasn’t something that all of the witches could do. As a matter of fact, Alice was the only one as far as she knew.
As though he understood the need for her to concentrate, Victor stood silently near the wall, keeping an eye out for her aunt and uncle while she did her thing.
After about thirty seconds, she opened her eyes. “Downstairs. In the basement.”
Maybe it was her tone of voice, or the conviction on her face, but Victor didn’t question her, just held out his hand for her to take and allowed her to show him the way.
The door by the kitchen that led to the downstairs wasn’t latched, and Alice wondered why she hadn’t noticed it when they’d passed by before. She pulled it open, cringing when the hinges creaked, announcing their presence to any who happened to be listening. They both froze, waiting for the alarm to be raised, but when nothing came, Victor gave her hand a squeeze and moved ahead of her to make his way down the stairs.
The stairway was dark, the old wood rotting and uneven. Alice shivered in the damp cold, and paused to pull her coat tighter around her. The fact that they didn’t run into any spider webs gave testament that someone had been down here recently. As far as Alice knew, her aunt had come down here once after moving into the house, raised her light high in the air, took one look around at the water dripping onto the dirt floor, the moss-covered stone walls, and the insects and rodents scurrying into the corners, and promptly came back up the stairs and closed and locked the door, never to open it again. In spite of what the fairytales would have you believe, witches weren’t fond of creepy-crawly things. At least not the witches in her family.
Flickering lights danced across the bottom of the stairway. When Alice arrived there, she saw it was caused by an assortment of candles arranged in a circle on the floor. There were markings scratched into the dirt at the center of the circle, and rune stones were tossed around in what appeared to be a half-hazard pattern within.
“What is this?” Victor walked right up to the edge of the ring of candles, but Alice grabbed his sleeve and pulled him back.
“It’s a spell. Do not enter the circle.” She didn’t bother to keep her voice down now. It was obvious that although she had seen her aunt and uncle enter the house with her own eyes, they weren’t there now. “I’m not certain what it is yet.” Holding her skirt tight against her legs so as not to touch the flames, Alice walked around the perimeter until she could discern what was sketched within. “Oh, my gods,” she breathed.
“Alice? What is it?” Victor came as close as he dared, staring hard at the patterns etched in the dirt. “What does it say?”
His clean, masculine scent chased away the moldy smell of the basement, and Alice had to force herself to concentrate. “I think I know where my aunt went.”
“Where?”
Alice lifted her head. His blue eyes were dark and stormy in the weak candlelight, or maybe from the tenseness of the situation. She pointed to the circle at her feet. “This is a spell.”
“Yes, you told me that already,” he said when she didn’t continue.
“It’s a spell to the other side.”
Victor frowned, his dark brows pulled low. “The other side of what?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
A sound escaped him, something between a scoff and a laugh. “How the hell would I know?”
“Because you’re the one who told me about the book, where I’m quite certain my aunt found this spell. And you’re the one who told me about the djinn attached to it. And you’re also the one who somehow knew that my uncle was mixed up with them.”
Victor’s steady gaze never left hers. “Alice, I don’t know what it is you’re implying.”
“I think you know more about all of this than you’re telling me, and I think maybe you have an ulterior motive for being here. And I’m going to find out what it is.”
He took her shoulders in a firm grip, his features sharp with concern. “Alice, please don’t do anything rash. You know you can trust me.”
“Can I, Victor? Truly?”
The words were barely out of her mouth when she heard a sound from the far corner of the room. Both of their heads snapped around in that direction. When it came again, Victor walked into the shadows to check it out.
Alice watched him go. She could barely see more than the white pinstripes on his suit. “What is it?”
His face was a ghostly shadow of himself as he twisted his head around to look at her, shock covering his handsome features. “It’s your uncle. He appears to have quite a lump on his head, but otherwise he’s okay.”
“Aunt Marie,” she whispered. Alice looked down at the circle. She took a step closer.
“No, Alice. Wait!” Victor stood up in a rush. Uncle Tom hung onto his sleeve, preventing him from coming to her. “Alice, whatever it is you’re thinking, just wait.”
Though her knees shook with fear, she lifted her chin. “I know where Aunt Marie went. I’ll return as soon as I find her—and the book.” Then she stepped inside the circle, lifted two of the runes, and closed her fists tight around them. The now familiar tingle ran up and down her spine. Squeezing her eyes shut, she felt the magic within the circle whirl around her, feeling her out. The spell came to her easily, as did the words she needed to begin. Strange, ancient words that were somehow as familiar to her as her own native tongue. The world rushed away from her, as if she were sitting backward on the top of a train as it barreled along the tracks.
The last thing she heard was Victor screaming her name.