Sasha held her breath, waiting for what happened next. She heard someone come to the window above her and soon heard the man's voice above her.
"It's nothing honey. Just your damn cat climbing in. What's going on?"
Sasha didn't dare look up and through the window again. Madam Soltar was on some sort of roll now. She'd be looking out the window, or at least glancing toward it, waiting for whatever it was that she was afraid of. Sasha felt sure she'd be spotted if she was seen.
She could hear the two men talking with the woman inside, trying to calm her down. But she now bordered on hysteria. She was crazy with her fears. Sasha could hear her opening draws and rummaging through things as the men asked her what she was doing and told her to calm down. In a few moments however, Madam Soltar screamed at them both to get out. When they tried to reason with her, she got even crazier telling them that she needed to be alone.
Sasha heard them protesting as they completed dressing and then were ushered unceremoniously out the back door. Sasha had time enough just to sneak behind a bush before they were out in the yard, and working their way up the side of the house that she had walked down just a few minutes before.
Madame Soltar became quite frantic as soon as they'd left. She came to the window above Sasha and pulled it down closed, and then moved about the room closing all the windows and locking doors. Sasha could still hear her through the glass, her muffled voice busying herself with opening draws and setting things up.
Now that the woman was alone, Sasha contemplated moving to the front of the house and knocking on the door, as if she'd just arrived. It might be the best way to distract her from whatever she was doing.
Sasha moved around to the back of the house and knocked on the door hard.
"Who is there?" the woman's voice sounded terrified.
"Madame Soltar, I am sorry to bother you at home, but I need to see you. It's an emergency." In a blinding flash the door was flung open.
Sasha started at what she saw.
The room behind Madam Soltar was a mess. In the short period of time since Sasha had looked through the window, she'd almost turned the place upside down. Bundles of something small and dried sat in clumps around the floor behind the woman, in a small semi circle, almost as if they were creating a protective barrier against what might come in the door. One was already lit and the pungent smell hit Sasha full in the face. She recognised the smell. It was the same smell she'd experienced the first day she'd walked into Jay's warehouse. It was the smell of burning sage.
But nothing prepared her for Madam Soltar herself.
She still wore her robe, but it fell apart so that her naked body lay partially revealed. I her hand she held a pentagram, and a large lit black candle that had words inscribed in a scrawl that Sasha didn't recognise.
She stared at Sasha, her eyes widening in horror. "YOU!" she cried out.
"I'm sorry to ... er... interrupt, Madam Soltar, and I know you didn't want me back here for some reason, but I assure you I wouldn't bother you unless it was very important."
"Get off my property. I don't want you here. I told you that."
"Please, Madam Soltar, you saw in my friends hand that she would become sick. Well she has now, and I need you to tell me about her and her husband."
Madame Soltar hissed and pushed the pentagram toward Sasha. Her eyes flashed with menace and fear combined giving her an appearance of one almost damned.
"I told you to never come back. And I won't help any friend of yours."
"I don't know what I have done. I am sure you have me mixed up with someone else. I haven't ever done you any harm, and I don't see that I ever could."
"When the time comes, you tell him I don't want what he has to offer."
