Page 82 of A Witch-ish Guide to Protectors and Pendulums

So far, my presence remained unnoticed. At least there was that. We stopped in front of a cell. A woman with dark, almost black hair, and deeply tanned skin—she appeared of Middle Eastern descent, maybe?—approached Kimaris with a set of wrought-iron skeleton keys on a large keyring. She wore the same commando garb as Kimaris.

“Connor Baghest?” she asked. “How’d you bag him?” An air of awe resonated in her words.

The man shrugged. “I got lucky.”

“Do we kill him now?” she asked next.

He shook his head. “And lose this bargaining chip?”

“I thought… he had no… loyalty to me,” Connor said, straining to speak now.

“Just because he’s not loyal doesn’t mean you aren’t useful to him. We’ll see what B—” He stopped himself before finishing and then redirected his thought. “We’ll see what the big man in charge wants to do with him.”

The woman unlocked the closest cell and Kimaris pushed the cage inside. The door snapped shut and the cage dropped, disintegrating into a pile of black dust on the floor. The bars on the cell door were made of that same black salt. Connor slowly stood, wobbling as if about to lose his balance, and stepped gingerly over the pile of salt. He pressed his back against the wall and slid down until his butt hit the floor. Even though the walls and floor were made of stone, the salt had clearly weakened him too much to fight back. It killed me to see my mate so vulnerable. Connor Baghest wasnevervulnerable.

As weak as I felt, I still used what magic I could to push a thought into his head. “We need to get you out.”

My head filled with static and a crackling noise before I heard, “You aren’t strong enough. Find a witch to heal you.”

“I won’t leave you.”

“Please, Simone… I need you to do this.” His eyes closed and his breathing went shallow. My stomach plummeted as fear filled me.

“Connor!” I shouted in my head.

His eyes blinked open. “Sorry.”

“Don’t you die on me.” Tears rolled down my invisible cheeks. “I’ll kill you if you die on me.”

“I won’t die… I have too much to live for.” Because that didn’t make me cry harder. “Follow the hallway… away from the chamber,” he continued. “You should find another set of stairs…Take them up.”

“I love you,” I whispered to him. When he said nothing back, I ran as fast as I could out of the chamber and down the dank hallway. I found the stairs he’d talked about and rushed up,stopping abruptly when a demon stepped around the bend going down. These staircases hardly allowed for more than a person’s body width to begin with. I flattened my back against the wall and sucked in, holding my breath, fingers crossed, that they wouldn’t skim me as they passed.

Apparently, they were all part of the commando club. All-black, the required uniform. As this one passed me, she sort of sniffed the air but kept on walking. Once she’d cleared the stairs, I bolted up the rest of the way. Where the portal opened up to wasn’t much better than what I’d left behind. I emerged into a bombed-out sandstone building. Heat more stifling than the temperature-controlled Hades assaulted me. I smelled sand. From this, I gathered I’d made topside in the Middle East or Northern Africa. But I could literally be anywhere—at least anywhere with a desert. Just peachy. Northern African and Middle Eastern countries didn’t exactly have the witch-friendly stamp of approval. I didn’t mean to implyevery personheld a prejudice against our kind, just theregions as a whole.

Now I faced a different problem. Keeping myself cloaked in my weakened state for such a prolonged period of time wore my butt out. I had to rest and that just pissed me off because Connor needed me. But I felt so weak, I could hardly keep my eyes open. Literally. Some savior of the world I turned out to be. I found a dark corner of the room and dropped down. There, I passed out.

A dream filled my head as I slept. Dreams didn’t usually penetrate this level of consciousness for me, but here we were. Mr. Pooches, my gorgeous black kitty, hopped up on my lap and sat, looking right at me.

“Mr. Pooches?” I scratched behind his ear. “Are you okay?” He pressed his head into my hand to really get his scratch on. “You should have enough food and water.”

“I’ve had my fill,” he responded, winding his tail around my wrist, and I jerked back in surprise. Mr. Pooches never talkedto me. Of course, I didn’t remember ever dreaming about Mr. Pooches, either.

“You talk?”

“I talk—but only to you.”

“Why only to me?”

He cocked his head and shot me a ‘really?’ look. I wasn’t trying for obtuse. Mr. Pooches had never talked to me before. Sue me.

“Okay,” he went on. “We don’t have time for all the explanations the situation requires. I’m here to tell you there’s a witch nearby. She’s somewhere in your vicinity. Open your mind to sense her. She’ll help if you explain the situation.”

“‘A witch nearby’?” I asked stupidly.

Mr. Pooches got very impatient with me. “Listen—” He turned away as if distracted. “There’s been trouble at the house and I think they’re back. Go find the witch. I’ll join you as soon as I can.” Then he popped out of my dream, leaving me all alone.

That was the last I was aware until my eyes blinked open. I remembered every part of that dream. It was just a dream, right? At this point, I couldn’t tell if I was coming or going. One thing became clear, when I heard men talking in a foreign tongue I knew I needed to get the hell out of here. They walked right past my dark corner. Lilith knows how they didn’t see me or smell me because my cloaking ran out. Once they’d passed me, I gave it a few more seconds to ensure they wouldn’t see me before leaving the building and I moved through the darkened streets, pressing myself against walls when necessary and running at other times. The whole time keeping my senses open to sniff out any witch in the area.

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