Darkangel (The Witches of Cleopatra Hill) by Christine Pope Page B

few doors down from the stately Victorian where Great-Aunt Ruby lived. So many of them, all surrounding us with their strength, until the magic number of twenty-one was reached. Well, twenty-two, counting Adam, but he wasn’t going to be participating.
    “What about Great-Aunt Ruby?” I asked. Usually she would take part in something this important.
    My cousin Dora, who lived with Ruby, shook her head. “She’s been feeling a little tired the past few days, so I thought it better if she sat this one out.”
    At that reply I couldn’t help feeling a little guilty. When was the last time I’d gone up to visit my great-aunt? Had to be almost a week now. I’d spent way too much time wrapped up in my own problems.
    Aunt Rachel also looked rather grim, but then she shook her head, as if reminding herself to focus on the task at hand. After pulling out a soapstone incense burner and some cedar incense, she said, “Angela, you’ll need to lead the ritual, as you’re the one who saw the entity we’re protecting against. We’re all here to support you.”
    I’d guessed she would ask that of me, but it didn’t make this any easier. Even with all of them there, I couldn’t help feeling alone. I would have to put myself out in front of everyone and hope that whatever it was had long gone.
    There wasn’t much I could do except nod, however. I picked up the candle and sparked the flame with my thought. It lit at once, its glow steady and calming.
    “Goddess, we ask that you lend us your strength, and aid us in cleansing this house of whatever evil spirits might have visited here. Let this pure white fire dispel the shadows, and bring peace to this place.”
    An icy breath seemed to pass over me, and the candle flame flickered wildly. At once I heard the echoing murmur from the coven.
    “Bring peace to this place.”
    Warmth began to return, and the candle stilled. I moved to the front door and repeated my plea to the Goddess. From there I moved clockwise around the room, although the coven members stayed more or less in the center of the space. Not that it would have been all that easy for a crowd that size to follow me everywhere, what with all the table displays and bookshelves that filled the store.
    I moved down the hallway to the stairs opposite the storeroom door, and hesitated. Were they all going to follow me upstairs to the apartment?
    Apparently they were, although they had to straggle their way upward in ones and twos, a line that stretched almost all the way back to the first floor by the time I reached the second story. I felt nothing up here, not even the hint of a chill I had sensed before the power of the light pushed it back, but of course I wasn’t about to take any chances. Clockwise again, moving from the living room to the kitchen, and then to the funny little cubbyhole off the dining room that my aunt used as a workspace for drying flowers and herbs. From there we climbed yet again, to Aunt Rachel’s room and my own bedroom, past the inadequate little bathroom we had to share. All the while I focused on the power of the white light, of how it sent the darkness away from every corner, every cubby.
    Then it was all the way back to the ground floor again, and the ritual repeated with the burning incense and the purifying power of air, then finally with spring water poured from one of the bottles we always kept under the sales counter, mixed with the pink Himalayan salt, bringing the strength of earth and the balance and clarity of water to all the spaces in the building. As I worked, I could feel the energy of the coven humming along with me, lending me the power necessary to perform the ritual and make it a lasting one, something that would maintain its protection for months and even years.
    At last we had made all the circuits. I took up the bowl with the spring water and salt mixture, then went to the front door and traced the form of a pentacle there with my index finger.
    “Peace and purity dwell