A Witch-ish Guide to Protectors and Pendulums (Lilith and Co. #1)

Chapter 22

Chapter

Twenty-Two

T he woman led me into a very homey room with a flowered sofa and a fire flickering in the fireplace. Despite the fact that we were in a desert, the temperature dipped when the sun went down, giving the night air a nip. A muted-puce wingback chair sat across from the sofa. The furniture looked old and worn but comfortable.

“Please, sit,” the witch offered. She didn’t have to offer twice. I dropped into that ugly puce chair and sank down. Oh, yeah—old and worn but comfortable, indeed. “Can I get you something to drink?” she asked and there was my in.

“That’s what I’m here for,” I replied and she stared at me, head tilted, blank look in her eyes and a slacked expression on her lips. I sighed. “I’m in pretty desperate need of a healing tea.”

“That’s why you needed a witch,” she mumbled. “Oh—I’m Shafira. Welcome to my home, Simone Lamia.”

I laughed at the way she’d just remembered to introduce herself. But given the way I’d barged in on her at night, this one was on me.

“First, let me say ‘thank you,’ Shafira, for helping me,” I told her. She nodded as she filled a kettle with water. “Second, Shafira is a beautiful name.”

“I was named by my great-grandmother, who transitioned the day I was born. My name was the last gift she’d given to our family.”

“That’s quite a legacy,” I responded, knowing the time had come to spill my guts. She needed to know who she was helping. But I got distracted for a moment while watching her measure herbs into a mortar and then crush them with the pestle. I shook my head to clear it. The fragranced air could lull the most energized person to sleep, so I fought the smell tooth and nail to stay awake. “This is going to sound odd at best and fabricated at worst, but I promise you it’s the truth.”

“‘Fabricated’?” she asked, and I nodded, though her back was to me.

I cleared my throat. “Yes. There’s a reason you don’t sense me as a witch. Because I’m not exactly a witch.”

She turned to face me. “‘Not exactly a witch’?”

If she kept repeating me, this would take all night. As we didn’t have all night, I rushed on, hoping I could get it all out before another interruption. “I’m more than a witch. Have you ever heard of Lilium?”

She startled, dropping the spoon in her hand. The aluminum clanked against the stone floor. “ Lilium ?”

“I’m not just a Lilium… I’m sort of the first Lilium, or second if you count my mother.” When she squinted her eyes at me, I shook my head. I needed to carry a laminated explanation card in my pocket for moments like these. If I survived saving the world, I’d get on that.

She laughed as if she thought I was teasing until she caught my eyes and saw anything but. “Are you serious?” she asked and I nodded. “How is that possible?”

“Okay, here’s the CliffsNotes version. Adam was an abusive bastard. Lilith took her two children, a son and daughter, and fled the Garden of Eden. The magic of the garden was with Lilith and Adam wanted it back. Lilith got remarried and raised my mom, my uncle, and the children she had with her new husband. They were happy. Adam hunted them down wanting to get the magic back by getting my mother to marry his son Cain. Are you following?”

She nodded.

“Great. Okay, where was I?”

“Adam hunted them down.”

“Right. My mother was already married to my father. She was pregnant with me and my twin brother, Simeon. Adam and his disciples attacked on the day we were born. My parents died that day. To keep us out of Adam’s hands, my grandmother, Lilith, escaped through time, depositing my brother and me in different locations. We never knew each other existed until a week ago or so.”

She blinked several times before saying, “This is a lot to take in.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. But here’s the thing. My mate is Connor Baghest. He’s a?—”

“Hellhound,” she replied. “The Baghests are a very old protector family. He’s your mate, too?”

“Yup.” I popped the ‘p.’ “Anyway, long story longer, we found my brother and his mate, who is Connor’s sister, Madigan?—”

Her eyebrows shot up to her hairline. “So your brother’s mate is a Baghest protector, too? This is incredible.”

“Well, we found them, and Connor and I hunted down one of my cousins, a Lilium named Lily Joy. We were at her place in the English countryside when we were attacked by a horde of demons. I’d already been recuperating from the last time we’d been attacked and I had to get us out, so I manifested and Connor and I ended up in a desert in South America. I hardly had any energy left, but Connor made me use what I had to cloak myself. I couldn’t cloak him. He was captured by a demon named Kimaris?—”

She gasped. “As in one of the marquises of Hell?”

“Yeah. ” I sighed. “That would be the one. It seems he has a team of commando demons working for him. I have to rescue Connor, but I don’t have the energy. That’s why I need the tea. I need to heal so I can rescue my mate.”

“You can’t rescue him alone.”

I sighed again. This one longer and weightier. What choice did I have? Given our team consisted of me, Connor, Simeon, Madigan, and Lily Joy, and that I currently didn’t know the whereabouts or health status of any of them, save for Connor, kind of… “I have to. Did you know there are catacombs under Hades, the corporation?”

“Hades, the corporation ?”

“Hell is the place you want to avoid. The part of Hades I’ve visited was nice. And under Hades, there’s a sixteenth-century prison? They trapped him in black salt. He’s so sick and worn down. I’m worried he won’t survive there much longer. I don’t know where my brother and Madigan or Lily Joy are. I have no choice.” My stupid eyes teared up again. Yes, I turned into a softy where Connor was concerned.

Shafira spooned two spoonfuls of the mashed herbs into a mug, then she drizzled it with honey. She lifted the whistling teapot from the fire and poured the steaming liquid into the herbs. Then she handed it off to me. I closed my eyes, breathing in the healing smell before taking my first tentative sip. What? It was hot. As I sipped my tea, she walked off into a different room. She came back with a plate of… well, it looked like baklava. She handed it to me. It smelled like baklava.

“Eat,” she said. “This will help you to heal faster.” Didn’t have to tell me twice. Eating was better than crying over this crappy situation. “We have to make a plan.”

“We?” I asked around a mouthful of food. “Me, not we .”

“Someone needs to have your back while you rescue your mate—or you need to have my back while I rescue your mate. Given your family, I assume you have more powers than me.”

“Did you not hear me?”

“Yes. I heard you. But you can’t take on Kamaris and his minions alone.”

“This is so dangerous. I can’t ask you to go up against a marquis of hell. I need you to locate other witches and recruit them into the cause. Witches will win this war.”

“Witches will win this war. That’s why they’ve sent us into hiding, why the covens have been attacked. They are scared of us. But look around. Where I live is dangerous. I face it every single day.”

“But—”

“How did you find me?”

Okay, this question got me a bit confused. “I opened my senses to finding you.”

“But with all the witches gone into hiding, how did you know I’d be here?”

Oh, I got it. “My cat visited me in a dream and told me to search for you.” Yeah, it sounded stupid to me too.

“Your… cat ? Do you not think that the universe led you to me?”

“I never thought about it.”

“We all have a destiny. Your cat sending you to find me is far from coincidental. We are tied. To refuse my help is to deny me my destiny.”

“You could die. You get you could die, right?”

“If that is my destiny—if my death brings safety to my nieces who are in hiding with my sister, then I will accept this. I have no children of my own, but my nieces mean as much to me as any ever could. I will do anything to protect those girls.”

“I still don’t like this…”

“Neither of us like this. But what choice do we have? Evil is sending the witches into hiding—a greater evil than that of mankind. If you were sent a protector as your mate, then we need to save him. He is a part of this. You must fight with him at your side if you have any hope of emerging triumphant.”

No truer words.

“You will sleep now,” she went on. “The herbs in the tea will help you to rest your mind and body in order to heal.” Then Shafira walked out of the room. She came back with a pillow and a throw, placing them down on the sofa. “Please”—she gestured to the makeshift bed— “lie down. We will go once you have your strength back.”

Sleeping seemed like the last thing I needed to be doing, but the woman had a point. We needed my power back to full strength if I stood any shot at rescuing Connor. I stood from the ugly chair, stretching, and then walked the few steps over to the sofa, where I lay down.

The sleep took me just about as soon as my head hit the pillow. Fatigue eased from my body and I felt that sense of floating again. This time, I knew the drill. A door opened up and my consciousness floated through. I found Simeon and Madigan on a bed, sleeping. It had to be an old motel. It looked abandoned but still had the old furniture. In Michigan, where I lived, there was this State Highway, M-13. It led up north and was the road hunters especially had used before the construction of I-75. All along the highway, you’d find these little motels tourists and hunters stayed in for the night or longer. Once the interstate went in, most of those little motels had gone belly up. But the buildings remained, as did the furniture inside.

This reminded me of one of those.

“Sim?” I whispered, not wanting to wake up Madigan—and then I laughed at myself. She wouldn’t see me; she wouldn’t hear me. Simeon’s eyes blinked open and his consciousness rose above his body.

“Simone—oh, god, we’ve been so worried about you.”

“I’m okay. How are you?”

“Unhurt. Whatever you did—there was this flash of bright light and I grabbed on to Madi just in time. We were flung into a different place.”

“Lily Joy?” I asked, worried and hopeful at the same time.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. We got separated.”

My heart sank. “Where are you now?”

“I don’t really know yet. We found this place and thought it best to hide out until nightfall.”

“Best to keep out of sight. I agree.”

“Where are you?” he asked, and oh, boy, wasn’t that a long story.

“I’m either in the Middle East or Northern Africa. Connor was captured by a demon named Kimaris.”

“Kimaris? Why do I know that name?”

“I guess he’s sort of a bigwig in Hell. They’ve got Connor trapped in a black salt cell—did you know black salt can hurt, even kill a hellhound?”

His face dropped as he raked his hand through his ethereal hair. “I had no idea. Shit, it’s a good thing?—”

A huge explosion ripped through the air and a hand grabbed my arm. I couldn’t tell if I was asleep or awake until Shafira's wild eyes met mine. “ Run, ” she whisper-shouted. Definitely awake. Bricks from the wall, ceiling, and roof partially blocked the gaping hole in the side of her home. Shafira yanked hard on my hand to help me up after I stumbled when rubble shifted and slid under my feet. We paused only long enough to get a bearing, then she and I ran, dodging behind buildings and at one point under a truck so as not to be seen.

Demon attack? Mortal attack? At this point, neither of us knew. Men could kill us just as easily as demons. Bullets worked just as well as magic. I opened my senses to find us a portal to escape through.

A giant dust cloud plumed into the nighttime sky above where her home had been. Her home? Dammit.

“I think we’d be safer in Hades,” Shafira teased with sadness, but she wasn’t wrong, and that got me thinking.

“The portal I came in through is lost to us now. I don’t remember exactly which building I left and it’s too dangerous to go back into the city to look.”

“I’ll keep an eye out. You find us a portal if you think one is close by.”

“Oh, I have no doubt.”

I opened up my senses, feeling the power radiate away from my body like fingers reaching for the empty space in front of us as we walked. It was nighttime and we were in a desert, but a niggling feeling kept telling me we were heading east.

Just as the sun started to peek above the horizon line, we stumbled into a ghost town, one of those places that years ago held a population, but they’d all left now. The moment we stepped into town, I felt the portal draw me to it.

“Over there.” I pointed to a partially crumbling building on the perimeter of the town. “It’s inside. I feel it.”

“Lead the way,” Shafira offered, and I did. We ran along the perimeter of the town to the building in question. The pull of the portal grew stronger with every step. “I feel it too,” she said.

Shafira had to have power running through her because as I’d learned during my first encounter with one, most witches didn’t feel a portal. She wasn’t a Lilium, though. She reminded me of Agatha.

Once we reached the building, I felt around the ground finding a stone, I picked it up throwing it inside. We listened as it skittered along the floor, and then we waited a bit longer to make sure no one came to check on the noise. When no one did, we walked inside. The portal opened right up for us. We never even had to search for it. Shafira gripped the back of my shirt as we descended the stone stairs. She gasped at the red, glowing walls. Having recuperated well enough, I cloaked us near the bottom step. When we emerged, it was business as usual.

“Keep hold,” I whispered to her, and I felt her give my shirt a tug in the affirmative. The demons working around us looked terribly unhappy. The offices looked exactly like what one expected offices in Hades to look like. I felt like I’d been through this office before. And then it hit me. Connor had navigated us through here once. This office belonged to Satan. It had to. Where had Luc said Satan ruled? Well, I wouldn’t dare speak until we cleared this place.

My current partner in crime picked up on my cues and stayed completely silent. But hey—plus side, I remembered how to maneuver us through this nasty quadrant. If I turned us left at this hallway… Holynowway ! I did it! I got us to the stairwell that led down into the catacombs.

And the air grew damper, smelling stronger of sulfuric, rotten eggs with each step down, but I confess, I jumped up and down once we reached the bottom.

“We’re here,” I whisper-shouted. “This is the catacombs.”

“This place is horrible. It smells.”

“I know. But at least we found it. So where did you live? Hades has quadrants. If I remember correctly, Satan’s quadrant is Africa—and that office building we passed through belonged to Satan.”

“I don’t live in Africa. Couldn’t you tell by the surroundings?” she asked and I sort of shrugged in embarrassment.

“I’m not really familiar with this area of the world. When I first saw you, I thought you were Egyptian.”

“I am not Egyptian. I’m Iraqi.”

Crap! Could I have been more insensitive? Not to say there was anything wrong with being Egyptian. But they’d originated from completely different peoples. Now that I knew where we were, something about this bothered me. Iraq was located in the Middle East—the Middle East was located in Western Asia. What demon ruled Asia? I thought about it, and then I thought some more.

This made no sense. At least not when I remembered who ruled Asia. Beelzebub. He ruled Asia. Gluttony. Gluttony in this quadrant? Nope. I was getting nothing. It didn’t fit Iraq, or many of these Middle Eastern countries. So much fighting. Baghdad had once been one of the most beautiful cities in the world. So… it hit me. Luc once told me that several of the big seven continuously fought for control over quadrants. What if Satan had taken over that section of the quadrant? Wrath. How much more wrath could you get?

“Okay, I think whatever is going on, Satan is behind it.”

“Satan?” she asked, sucking in a sharp breath.

“I’m not happy about it, either. He’s a nasty piece of work.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“Well, we have to try to find Connor again. The problem is, I have no idea how to navigate these catacombs. They all look the same.”

“Can’t you—how did you put it? Manifest, yes. Can’t you just manifest us to him?”

I shook my head, wanting to kick myself for not having that ability. “Not yet. The catacombs won’t let me yet. My powers have been coming to me in spurts. So maybe I’ll be able to do it, but for now…” I closed my eyes and really tried to concentrate on manifesting us to Connor. Nothing happened. Not even a shimmer of magic. To make sure my magic still worked, I cloaked us again. Then I zapped a crumbling piece of wall. It disintegrated the rock to dust. I wanted to scream, cry, and shout obscenities as loudly as a toddler throwing a temper tantrum. Alas, I sucked it up, shaking my head again. “No.”

“I guess we pick a direction and start walking.” Shafira was right. What else could we do?

I shrugged. “We’re off to see the wizard…” I teased while picking a direction and we set off on this new leg of our adventure.

“Wizard?” Shafira asked. “Now we are finding wizards?”

“It’s a movie— never mind . If we survive this, I’ll show it to you.”

We picked a direction and went for it. The dampness made my clothing stick to my body. I hated wearing damp clothing. We walked for what seemed like hours until we came to another set of stairs.

“Should we?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Why not? I doubt any stairs are going to land us in a beach resort with beautiful cabana boys bringing us drinks.”

“What do you know about cabana boys?”

Shafira laughed. “My country might have its issues, but I’m still a part of the world.”

Fair enough. “To be clear, I’d direct the cabana boys to you because Connor would blow a gasket if he found out I was getting drinks from scantily clad men in speedos—or whatever they wear at beach resorts.”

“And to be clear, I’d welcome that.”

We both snickered, but it was time to put on our game faces. We didn’t know what we were about to walk up into. I used my power to cloak us. The bubble enveloped the both of us, but I made sure Shafira saw me.

“This is so weird,” she said.

“You get used to it.”

I took the lead, starting up the stone steps. The air grew dryer and warmer the higher we climbed. We emerged into an empty hallway, continuing on until we found the office space for this quadrant, whatever quadrant we were in.

No one appeared to be as happy working here as they did back in Luc’s office, but Luc was a fun guy. I couldn’t blame them. Still, they didn’t look as hopeless as those back in Satan’s office. I had no idea whose office we found ourselves in.

None of the demons noticed our presence. My cloak held just as I commanded it to. We walked until we stumbled upon the stairs leading up and out of Hades.

“This is it,” I whispered. She nodded, following me up. I pushed open the heavy, wooden door, bracing for where we were about to find ourselves.

Hardpacked dirt.

Brown, dying grasslands.

We emerged by a dead tree, or it looked dead. There weren’t any leaves. They had probably been swallowed up by the giant trunk. I wasn’t kidding. The trunk had to be as big around as a compact car. I’d never seen anything like it before.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine at this point.”

I scanned the area to suss if we had any company and I didn’t pick up on anyone, so I dropped the cloak.

The air felt hot and dry against my skin, in my throat, and with each breath dehydrating my lungs—not to be melodramatic, but okay, melodrama seemed apropos in the situation.

I turned left, lifting my hand to shield my eyes like a visor, and then I turned to the right, doing the exact same thing. Nope. No clue where we were. I had no clue which way to start walking. I basically had no clue about anything. I hated feeling clueless. But Connor needed me and Shafira relied on me to get us moving, so I did a quick eeny, meeny, miny, moe and started walking with Shafira next to me.

When a weird creature crossed our path, a very marsupial-esque creature, I sort of started thinking I knew where we’d landed.

“I think we’re in Australia,” I said, breaking the everlasting silence we’d found for ourselves, given we didn’t have water and at least for me, my mouth had gone dry several miles ago.

“Australia is… interesting ,” she replied.

“To say the least.”

I heard it, but I never said it. Who’d said it? I whipped my head around and out of nowhere, Mr. Pooches pranced over to sit in front of Shafira and me, blocking our path forward.

“Please tell me you’re seeing this,” I said to Shafira.

“The black cat blocking our way—yes. I see it, but I’m having a hard time believing it.”

“It took me time to find you,” said Mr. Pooches, causing me to blanch.

“Please tell me you heard that, too,” I begged.

“Oh, I heard it. Do you know this cat?”

“Yeah, this is Mr. Pooches. I told you about him visiting in my dream.”

“So, wait—you have a familiar? You never said you had a familiar. This is incredible. Not many witches are gifted companions.”

“Uh… he’s my pretty kitty. I found him wandering around outside my house looking for food. He’s not a familiar.”

“I’m a talking cat who showed up to help you. You’ve officially lost this argument,” Mr. Pooches said.

And he was right. I’d officially lost this argument. But I’d always thought of them as myths. I bent down to give him scratches under his chin. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked him and he glared at me the way he always did. “You know I wasn’t raised in the life. How would I have known? How did you find me? Who sent you to me?”

“Your grandmother time-jumped with me not long after she escaped with you and your brother, but your foster family called animal control when I kept coming around. I had to lie low until it was safe to join you. Then it took me a hot minute to locate you.”

“My grandmother sent you to me?”

Mr. Pooches nodded. I still felt like I was being pranked, but I went with it because what other choice did I have?

My new friend introduced herself. “I am Shafira.”

He smiled, eying her up and down, and ew —not cool.

“Do not mack on my friend,” I demanded.

“I’m a cat. It’s not like I can act on anything. But she’s beautiful.”

Shafira’s cheeks pinked. “Thank you.”

I clapped my hands to get their attention. “Okay, people. Eyes on me. We need to find help because Connor needs us. There’s no saving the world without him.”

“Every party has a pooper,” he whined.

Really?

“Once I honed in on your location, I went scouting. We aren’t far from the Western Australian coven.” Mr. Pooches for the win!

I felt the first twinges of confidence I’d felt since we’d left Iraq behind for the catacombs. The Western Australia coven was known world over as a large and powerful coven. And it appeared they hadn’t been hit yet.

Okay, after several more hours—or that was how it felt in the sweltering heat, anyway—of walking, I began to doubt Mr. Pooches’s ability to judge distance. Not far? I guess if you meant relative to reaching the moon. Otherwise, way far.

“There,” he said, tipping his nose up in a direction kitty-corner from the path ahead of us.

“There what?” I asked.

“The coven.”

“There’s nothing there.” Shafira looked as dried out as I felt. We needed rest and we needed water.

“Oh, they’re there. It’s a village about a hundred feet that way.”

“Simone, I think your cat is broken.”

“They’ve put up wards. You just have to trust me.”

“If they’re using wards, why can you see them still?”

“I’m not a witch. Familiars are?—”

“Demons,” I answered helpfully, and when he glared at me, I smiled.

“If you want to get technical,” he said. “Yes, we’d be closer to demons than anything. But we’re our own subspecies and have our own union.”

Shafira popped out a laugh. “Familiars have unionized?”

“Okay, okay… Let’s focus here, people. Mr. Pooches, will you lead us into the town?”

“I’d be glad to.”

He turned his little black body in the direction he wanted us to go, prancing smugly with his tail in the air. Oh, how I wanted to give him a little zappy-zap from my Taser fingers to wipe out that smugness, but I decided to be the bigger person and let it go.

“We’re just about there,” he said. I reached over to grab Shafira’s hand. If the witches had put up wards, I didn’t know how they’d affect her walking through them, so I manifested us walking into the town square without any issues.

A blue light shimmered around us and I knew we’d passed through the invisible barrier. Once inside, a medieval village sprouted to life around us. Buildings and houses all with thatched roofs. Cobblestone streets. Window boxes blooming with brightly colored flowers. Several doors had these wrought-iron symbols hanging on them. I didn’t know what any of the symbols meant, but they gave off positive energies.

Okay. I liked this town.

That was when I noticed several eyes peeking out at us from behind window curtains. I waved at one set and they ducked out of sight. “Hello?” I called out. “My name is Simone Lamia. I need your help.”