“I don’t know anything specific. However, yesterday, he was to take us home if I brought you with me.”
“Home?” I repeated, perking up. “Where is it?”
“I don’t know,” she said, defeated. “Elliot called it his sanctuary and claimed that it was nearby.”
“What were you going to do there? Although, I should probably saywe, if I needed to be there as well,” I amended.
“He was going to prepare us for the ritual that would fix his health problems and allow us to finally be one,” Vivian replied.
I stiffened. “Health problems? You mean his clubfoot?” I asked.
Vivian recoiled and gave me a confused look. “What clubfoot? Both his feet are normal.”
I shook my head. “No. Elliot was born with a clubfoot. It has been replaced by a graft. But the execution is lacking. In his stead, I would also want to improve it rather than constantly hide it with glamour. He also has a variety of other defects. Have you not seen them?”
The shock on Vivian’s face as she shook her head echoed the one displayed by Sienna.
“The image you have of him is an illusion,” Lyall said. “He made you see him exactly the way you wished him to be.”
“Please describe Elliot for me,” I asked, intrigued.
“He is blonde, blue-eyed, and with the most stunning face. He’s quite tall, just slightly shorter than your friend,” Vivian replied, waving at Lyall. “He has the same strong build and a slightly tanned skin. His voice is very deep and throaty.”
“What?!” Sienna exclaimed, gently pushing away the hands of the green witch who was still working on her. “That’s not at all my Elliot. He is black with hazel eyes, a smattering of freckles on his face, despite his dark brown hair. He is indeed tall and muscular, but far bulkier than your friend.”
Vivian stared at her colleague with a crestfallen expression as she realized the extent of the illusion she had been fooled by.
“Let me guess, that description matched your fantasy of the perfect man. Did it?” Lyall asked with a depth of sympathy I never expected from him.
Both women nodded, crushed.
Lyall stared at Sienna with a troubled expression. “Did he also tell you that you were to go to his sanctuary yesterday?”
To my surprise, Sienna shaking her head seemed to confirm something Lyall was thinking. I gave him a questioning look.
“Based on what I witnessed in the crematorium, I do not believe that Elliot meant for Sienna to survive the ritual he was performing with her,” Lyall said pensively.
“What?!” I asked. “Even though he was quite brutal with her, he had healing runes in the magic circle surrounding the table.”
Lyall shook his head with a conviction that stunned me. “They were not healing runes. They were regeneration runes only meant to keep her alive long enough. He wasn’t done with her when we arrived. I’m convinced she was meant to die shortly after you had been subdued. Which makes me wonder—”
A powerful wave of magic blasted through the room, interrupting him. Then a series of runes began flashing around the doorframes. Without hesitation, we rushed outside into the hallway, my hands tingling as I invoked my fire magic, ready for battle. Several clerics were running up the majestic stairs leading up to the residential wing of the Sanctum where they each possessed their personal quarters. From where I stood, I could see even more runes pulsating with a reddish glow. It was the warning of protective wards being tripped.
Lyall raced up the stairs, and I followed in his wake. We reached the landing to find that only a certain number of doors had the red runes pulsating. To my surprise, they all stood wide open, which seemed counter to all the security protocols whenever demonic activity occurred within a given space. You wanted to contain whatever had entered our realm until you could subdue it. However, I couldn’t detect the presence of any foul creature or otherworldly threat.
Seconds later, the red glow faded around the door frame of one of the rooms, and the runes vanished—or rather became invisible as they returned to their latent state. Ewan angrily stormed out of that room, barking orders at one of the clerics as he marched towards another room. His steps faltered when he noticed Lyall and me hurrying towards him. Shame and anger flashed over his features.
“What’s going on?” I demanded as we closed the distance with him.
Ewan made a face as if he had bitten into something foul. “We’re finding mind control runes under the beds of my clerics. And so far, they’re only located in the rooms of the women who have gone missing. And…”
“And?” I insisted when his voice trailed off.
“And we found one as well in the room you were supposed to sleep in last night,” he added, looking devastated.
My blood boiled with anger. This had truly been thoroughly planned and calculated.
“That explains why the women could not remember when the indoctrination was taking place. The compulsion was being enforced while they slept,” Lyall mused aloud.
