Confessor: Chainfire Trilogy Part 3

Unlike the others, though, it continued to smolder. No flames erupted, but the whole thing, including the uniform that Richard could now see was not actually a uniform of cloth, leather, and armor, but actually a part of the beast itself, melted and bubbled. The dissolving mass began to coagulate into a blackened mass. As everyone stood stunned, watching, it burned without flame, drying and cracking and curling until only ashes were left.

"You used your gift," Nicci said, her head hanging. "It found you."

Richard nodded to no one in particular. "Berdine, please get Nicci to somewhere where she can get some rest."

Richard hoped that she could recover, that she would be all right. He didn't just care about her, he needed her. Adie had said that Nicci was his only hope.

CHAPTER 45

My, my, my. Aren't you the clever one."

Rachel jumped, letting out a squeak as she spun to the wire-thin voice.

The unblinking gaze of blanched blue eyes was fixed on her.

It was Six.

Rachel's instinct was to run, but she knew that it would do no good to run farther back into the rear of the cave, and Six was blocking the way out, so there was nowhere to run. Rachel had a knife, but even a knife suddenly felt ridiculously inadequate.

All alone with her like this, the witch woman was even more frightening than Rachel remembered. Her black hair looked as if it had been woven by a thousand black widow spiders. Her tight skin looked ready to split open over her knobby cheekbones. Her black dress was almost invisible in the shadows, leaving the pallid face and hands looking as if they were floating all by themselves in the dead-still cave.

She almost would rather have the ghostie gobblies after her than Six.

Rachel wondered how long the witch woman had been standing in the darkness watching. She knew that Six could move as silently as a snake, and that she had no difficulty getting around in complete darkness. It wouldn't surprise Rachel in the least if she found out that the woman had a forked tongue as well.

Rachel had been so deep in concentration as she'd worked on the drawing of Richard that she had not just lost track of time, but she had, to a degree, forgotten where she was. She had been so absorbed in what she'd been doing that she had forgotten her sense of caution. She didn't know that she could be so absorbed in anything.

She felt stupid for being careless and getting herself caught, for making such a foolish mistake. Chase would have shaken his head in shame and asked if she hadn't paid any attention at all to the things he'd taught her.

But she had desperately wanted to undo what had been done to Richard. She knew what it was like to be at the center of one of these spells. She knew how terrifying it was. She knew how helpless it made you feel. She didn't want that to happen to Richard, and he'd had that spell around him a lot longer than she'd had a spell around her. She had wantec to help him escape the hold of these evil drawings.

She had known that she was taking a risk, but Richard was her friend Richard had helped her so many times that she wanted to help him this once.

Six glanced to the darkness farther back in the cave, the darkness beyond the oil lamp, the darkness where Violet's bones lay.

"Yes, quite clever."

Rachel swallowed. "What?"

"The way you dispatched the old queen," Six said in a silky hiss.

Rachel couldn't help glancing over her shoulder in confusion. "Old queen?" She looked back at the witch woman. "Violet wasn't old."

Six smiled that smile she had that made Rachel nearly wet herself. "The moment she died she was as old as she would ever be, don't you suppose?"

Rachel didn't try to untangle the riddle. She was too scared to think.

Six abruptly stepped into the light. "How old do you suppose you are at this moment, little one?"

"I don't know, for sure," Rachel said as honestly as she could. She swallowed in terror. "I'm an orphan. I don't know how old I am."

Rachel thought of the visit from her mother-if it really had been her mother. As she thought back on it now, it didn't seem to make sense the way it had at the time. She wondered why her mother would leave her in an orphanage. If it was really her mother, why would she leave Rachel to be all alone? Why would she find her in the middle of nowhere and then just leave her? At the time she walked into Rachel's camp it had seemed perfectly natural, but now Rachel didn't know what to think.

Six only smiled at the answer. It was not a happy smile, though. Rachel didn't think that Six had a happy smile, just that clever one, the one that let people know she was thinking dark, witchy things.

The witch woman aimed a long bony finger at the drawing of Richard. "That was a great deal of work, you know."

Rachel nodded. "I know. I was here when you and Violet did it."

"Yes," Six drawled as she watched Rachel the way a spider watched a fly buzzing in its web. "You certainly were, weren't you?"