Spellcaster series #5: The Sage

Inner Demons

HEIDI

Tristan and I agreed that it was best to bring Anna to the Underworld where Brian could train and watch her. There, she would have a family and would be safe. Vicky, on the other hand, remained uncontactable.

We had also decided to stay the night while Dr. Pierce looked for another suitable and trustworthy volunteer. None of the other orphans knew about Anna and we kept it that way. I admitted, I wanted to stay thinking that I could try to reconcile with my inner demons after the Mrs. Tabitha ordeal. She and the orphanage had been haunting my dreams for the last five years.

The young volunteer, Faith Low, was arrested soon after despite Tristan's objections. He, on the other hand, seemed to think that by sacrificing a life to save one was justified? I let him think about it.

Maybe, I thought to myself, death was a better way out of a nightmarish life.

Tristan and I took up the spare bedroom and left the door ajar in case of emergency, the way Mrs Tabitha used to do. I washed my hair that night with shampoo—like I was getting rid of the blood that Anna left behind—and pondered on her future. My heart sank at the thought of her not being able to grow old like a human child would. She would remain eight years old for eternity, with the memory of drinking her sister's blood.

I shut my eyes and dipped my head into the bathtub filled with water to rinse my hair. When I surfaced and opened them—

—darkness. I felt a chill down my spine.

My vision slowly adjusted in the pitch blackness, forming and comprehending the outline of each object that I laid my eyes on. The only sounds were the friction of my skin against the bathtub and the sloshing of water. I wiped the water from my face and gripped onto the handles on the sides of the tub. I pulled my body up but an unseen force shoved me back into the water.

The force held me in there and a jolt of adrenaline rushed through me. I struggled against it but its strength overcame me. I opened my eyes to see what it was and a pair of glowing circles stared back into me from above the surface of the water. The air in my lungs was running out.

I let my energy swirl in me, cold and gripping. I held my palm out and projected an arcane spell. The force released me and I surfaced, gasping a lungful of air. I sat up, fingers clutching onto the sides of the bathtub. My heart pounded onto my ribcage and I felt myself tremble. What was that all about?

In the dark, I felt for my robe that I hung at the door and put it on. I stepped out of the bathroom and saw that someone had switched off the light.

A presence behind me. I turned to see nothing but a dark hallway with doors on both sides. A shadow moved in the obscurity, fleeting into a bedroom at the end of the corridor that had its door ajar.

Tristan?

I kept my footsteps as light as I could. I made my way down the hall, eyes and ears peeled for any intruders. I stood in front of the bedroom where Tristan was. I pushed the door and it swung in slightly, creaking softly as it went.

Inside, Tristan was fast asleep, facing the window with his back towards me. The covers were pulled up to his chest, tucked under his arm. Above him, strands of something coarse and black dangled. I followed the hair, black and long, to a silhouette that took the shape of a woman. She was watching Tristan with her feet planted on the ceiling, a reminder that she was far from human.

The djinn then turned her head around to meet my eyes with her glowing ones. A maniacal, ghastly grin stretched across her face.

"Delirium!" I cried, pointing my palm at it but it evanesced in a blink of an eye.