Leaving a gaping-mouthed Domino behind, Clarissa trailed after the younger witch. She halted next to Willa’s desk and watched as the other woman plopped into her chair. “Wow, that was something to see. I would never have guessed you had it in you.”
“Me either.” Groaning, Willa buried her face in her hands. “I can’t keep going on like this. Sooner or later, I will get fired, then what will I do? I can’t live on Ramen noodles forever.”
The abrupt change in Willa’s demeanor was enough to give Clarissa whiplash. Had the girl merely been putting on a good front earlier? If so, she was one hell of an amazing actress. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Like you said, Domino could never replace you. And she knows it.”
Willa’s bleakness showed no signs of dissolving. After an awkward hesitation, Clarissa tentatively patted the girl on the arm. It was ridiculous how even that small gesture made her break out in a cold sweat. But that didn’t stop her from experiencing a small spark of pride for meeting the beast of her insecurities head on. “Do you want to talk about whatever is bothering you? It might help.”
Her palms dragging down her face, Willa peered at her. “That’s part of the problem. I don’t really understand what is bothering me. All I know is that I haven’t been myself lately. I have no idea who I am anymore.”
“Maybe you’ve just been under too much stress. Domino and the rest of the guild are pros at dishing it out.”
“I wish I could say that’s what it is, but I don’t think so.” Willa’s fingers listlessly skimmed over her computer keys, her troubled gaze affixed to the cursor blinking on the monitor. “I’ve been having weird dreams, only they feel more like…visions. Or memories that aren’t mine.”
Clarissa leaned her hip on the desk’s edge, mulling the possibilities. A past-life experience coming back to haunt Willa? Constance had a better grasp on such things. Maybe a regression reading was in order. Just as she was about to suggest it, Willa jerked her hand away from the keyboard as if it’d stung her.
“Levi.”
She frowned at Willa. “What?”
“Levi. That word keeps popping into my head. Like everything else, I don’t know why. But just the sound of it makes me feel dizzy and claustrophobic. Like I’m drowning. Like we’re all drowning.”
Ah, now they were getting somewhere. Willa’s fear of drowning was nothing new. After losing both her parents and nearly her own life to the watery depths of the Atlantic when she was only eight, Willa had developed a crippling phobia of large bodies of water. Perhaps whatever she was encountering now was just a new manifestation of her repressed terror.
“I see them all drowning,” Willa whispered, her tone haunted. “Jenny Cavanaugh. Lois Grimes. Hundreds more.”
Clarissa blinked. “Jenny Cavanaugh?”
“Ever since the day she slipped into that coma, I’ve witnessed her drowning a thousand times over. She keeps reaching for me from the center of that oily cesspool of a lake, but I can’t save her.” Willa’s voice broke on a soft sob. “I can’t save any of them.”
A frigid shiver of dread and disbelief arced through Clarissa, and she staggered. It would have been beyond easy to trick herself into believing the nightmare Willa was recounting was a coincidence and nothing to do with her own personal drama. But she’d seen that oil-slicked lake of death. And the countless souls being herded to their doom. Her chest cramping, she knuckled the edge of the desk.
Oh, sweet goddess. No.
Chapter Fifteen
Sneaking into St. Joseph’s ICU proved to be an insurmountable obstacle she hadn’t counted on. Which only added to her mountainous pile of frustrations. She didn’t know precisely what she would have discovered if she had been able to sweet talk her way into Jenny Cavanaugh’s room, or any of the others. Probably nothing. Certainly no hard evidence that would link Seven to this string of coma cases. Not that she needed substantiated proof. Her gut feeling more than verified her suspicions.
As she drove to the coven house, she sorted through the little bit of information that she did have. In addition to Willa’s revealing visions, the timing of the comas in relation to Seven’s return to Savannah was too relevant to be overlooked. Was it possible that the creature hadn’t only returned to contract more souls, but to collect the ones it already owned? Who was to say she wasn’t the only one who’d had dealings with the son of a bitch seven years ago? The more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed that she wasn’t the only one Seven had came for. She was willing to bet that if the backgrounds of the coma victims were known, there’d be a glaring clue pointing in Seven’s direction.
Fortunately, she did know a thing or two about one of the victims, Jenny Cavanaugh.
Jenny’s gambling problem wasn’t a secret. She’d nearly lost everything because of it. Judging from Jenny’s current state, it was a safe bet that she had lost her soul as a direct result of her addiction.
What had Seven alluded to in her lucid dream? Not only was the sin attracted to you, but you to it? With that in mind, it didn’t take any stretch of the imagination to see how Jenny would have been a sitting duck for several of Seven’s personalities. Greed and possibly even Lust seemed likely candidates.
But that still didn’t explain how Seven talked Jenny into signing the contract. Why would a woman who had just about everything money could buy suddenly—?
The answer slammed into Clarissa with the impetus of an anvil. Jenny had almost lost her entire inheritance. Could it be that Seven reversed her misfortune in return for her soul?
It made sense. She herself had given up rights to her soul in exchange for her father’s. People in desperate situations did desperate things. If her father were in any frame of mind to remember the events that led up to his meeting with Seven, no doubt he’d reveal whatever the creature had bartered his soul with.
Her head spinning from the overload of revelations, she pulled into the coven house’s driveway and killed the engine. Tossing her keys into her purse, she raced up the porch steps. The interior of the house was quiet, which meant she could squirrel away in her office uninterrupted for at least a few minutes. Hopefully long enough to figure out what she could do with the information she’d gleaned about Seven.
She was past saving herself at this point, but if there was the slightest chance she could somehow keep one less soul from Seven’s twisted cache, then by the goddess, she would.
Dropping into her chair, she yanked a pen and a tablet of paper toward her. She jotted each of Seven’s sins on a separate line, leaving room for her notations. The most logical course of action would be an intervention. But in order to do that, she needed to determine the most likely places where Seven would be hunting for victims.
It’s not only what Envy hungers for in you…
Yes. The key didn’t just lie with Seven, but within the potential victims themselves. What sort of places would draw people so desperate and at the end of their rope that they would sign away their soul?
Her focus returned to the list of sins. Greed. Jenny Cavanaugh had frequented the riverboat casino quite a bit—a spot no doubt teeming with prey. Clarissa noted a few other leads before moving on to the next sin. Lust. Well, that was pretty much a no-brainer. Nightclubs and various places that catered to the pursuit of sexual fulfillment would be right up Lust’s alley. There was even a sex club in the city. It wasn’t widely advertised, for obvious reasons, but she knew about it through Constance after her coven sister admitted she liked to go there on occasion to watch the entertainment, so to speak.