Chapter 5



Remember way back in Chapter 1, when I said that Victoria had been looking frazzled?

Now she looked more like a zombie hiding under a glob of makeup. Classily done makeup, but even professionals couldn’t hide her exhaustion. As soon as she entered Travis opened his senses and he cringed at what he saw.

Her aura was very nearly colorless. It was as if someone drew around her with a dirty grey crayon. Every so often a spark of color shot through, only to be drained of color and pulse.

“How do you feel?” The answer was pretty obvious. Victoria leaned heavily on the wall, her white blouse and dark skirt giving a wrinkled appearance. Dark bruises were under her eyes, the makeup long since rubbed away. Her hair hung limp around her shoulders about as drained of life as she was.

“Like crap.” She replied bluntly.

“Lovely. Where is the necklace I gave you? It was to slow the process down.”

She looked a little contrite as she handed back the broken cross. It looked like someone ran over it with a truck then dropped it in the mud. That was not a good sign.

“It broke this morning as I was leaving the house. At first I thought it broke because I ran into Edward, but then I saw how dirty it became. What does it mean?”

“That someone hates you very much.” I inspected the trinket, noting the cracks in the metal from when the enchantment overloaded. It wasn’t very powerful to begin with, but to completely destroy it like this in one day? The hatred was strong in this one.

“Lots of people hate me.” A flash of light caught my eye. I was vaguely aware that part of me was still speaking to Victoria while the rest concentrated on the flash I saw. I lifted the cross to eye level and opened my senses fully once more.

There!

Very, very light green flashes of light were emitting from the cracks. They were so small I could barely see them. Now that I knew what to look for I could see small light green filaments around the cross. I looked up at Victoria and focused.

And there it was. Small, very small, almost microscopic green filaments of light were threaded about her aura. Every time they pulsed, color was taken away and replaced by the dull grimy slate color.

And that wasn’t even the most interesting part.

The most interesting part was that all of the green filaments convalesced around the ring on her left hand.

Somebody was in trrrrooooouubbbbllleeeeeeeee.

Epilogue
<p class="MsoNormal">   Well you can imagine what happened then.

<p class="MsoNormal">I presented her with earrings and told her about the ring.

<p class="MsoNormal">She didn’t want to believe me. I didn’t press the issue, accepted my payment and said that she might want to keep an eye on that husband of hers.

<p class="MsoNormal">I cannot force things to happen. I cannot force someone to see what they are unwilling to see. But with my gift of earrings and Victoria’s prompt revival I had placed a seed of doubt.

<p class="MsoNormal">Three months and a divorce later Victoria was back to work and enjoying her life free of life draining rings. Elizabeth enjoyed having her daughter’s vitality returned and I was enjoying the payment of my bills and not being harassed by sixty something year-old ladies with iron grips.

<p class="MsoNormal">As for Edward, Fate did decree that he would enter my shop at some time. But that is a tale for another day.