I believe you are enjoying your status as Head Witch. I believe it is making you arrogant, little witch. You imagine your precious coven to be so powerful. You have no idea what true power is.

“Are you a witch, Spirit?”

Witch! How I hate that word. I have no need of your petty spells and conjuring. I am a sorcerer. When I trod the earth I was the greatest sorcerer the world had ever known. I was lauded and respected. There has not been my equal since.

“When was that? When did you walk in the Land of Day?”

Centuries ago, when your witchery was young.

“I don’t understand,” I tell him cautiously. “If you were so powerful, so revered, how is that now you are content to serve such a dishonorable group as the Sentinels? Why would you ally yourself to their cause?”

I choose the masters I consider most advantageous to myself.

Druscilla puts her hand on my arm. “Ask him who is the Sentinel who has infiltrated our coven,” she whispers. But the spirit has heard and needs no asking.

The old woman is a fool to think I can be so easily swayed! My purpose is not to bargain, not to help the Lazarus witches. I come to state my demands, clear and simple. She is like all Lazarus witches; she sets herself above those who wielded true power with their magic! Such arrogance. There was no greater sorcerer, than I … Men, witches, sages of the ancients, all trembled in my presence! All deferred to me! Had I not been betrayed I would be ruling them still!

I am trying to take in all I am being told when beside me Druscilla utters a sharp cry of pain.

“Druscilla?”

She cries out again. It is the most pitiful, heartbreaking sound, and I know she must be suffering greatly to let herself cry so.

“Druscilla, what is it? What is happening?

I hear the Dark Spirit start to laugh. It is a rasping, dry, unholy noise.

Druscilla gasps, “Oh! Lilith, you must send him away!” Her voice is distorted with effort and pain. “Quickly. He is too strong … he will stop my heart…”

Without hesitating to question or to speak to the spirit further I begin chanting the words of banishment. Over and over, with as much passion as I am able, I speak the antique phrases that will send the spirit back to the Darkness. Still I hear his laughter. Druscilla clutches at me, and I pull her to me, holding her close, willing her frail body to stay strong, to withstand the evil that is inflicting such suffering upon it. She has ceased crying out but is breathing very quickly now, and I fear I will be too late.