by K. C. RILEY
Josie, Cassie, Boyd, Mason, and Alexei had taught me something. Magic didn’t always have to mean death and manipulation. Darkness and destruction. Magic could be a thing that was fun, something that healed and brought people together.
I laid across the blanket, put my ear to the earth, and listened to her like Jake had shown me the night he revealed he was an angel. I didn’t hear a thing, but I could feel her energy moving up into my body. She was warm and safe. Grounding and unnerving. I took a deep breath in and sighed.
My eyes were almost closed as I drifted off to sleep.
“What’s that?” Josie’s voice was faint.
“Liz,” Cassie called.
“Yeah,” I answered all dreamy-like.
I opened my eyes as the boys got to their feet. It didn’t take long to come to my senses and do the same.
Dark clouds rolled our way like an angry sea.
“That’s no ordinary storm,” Cassie said.
Something ominous was parting its way through the cornfield shriveling everything in its dark path. Before we could say another word, Death, the Black Mist, was already upon us.
The boys growled as their eyes glowed blue.
“Auspes Tutet Oter Bithen.” A woman’s voice thundered through the fields around us.
“What’s happening?” Josie asked.
“Auspes Tutet Oter Bithen.” There it was again.
This time I recognized the words spoken and the voice. But the two together didn’t make any sense. The words were from the ascension spell I had found in The Book of the Unnamed. The very spell I had planned on using later tonight. And the voice belonged to Meghan.
“Something’s wrong,” I said, almost doubling over with cramps in my stomach.
Something burned at my wrist, the mark from my ascension, the very one Jake had released from my soul.
Meghan stepped out of the cornfield surrounded by the Black Mist. Her eyes glowed crimson. “Auspes Tutet Oter Bithen.”
The boys tried to reach her but the wind was too strong.
At the sound of the words, my feet lifted off the ground. “Run,” I said, barely able to speak.
“What’s happening?” Cassie yelled.
“Run.”
“Auspes Tutet Oter Bithen,” Meghan chanted.
The ground shook as the ruins erupted from the earth. My body was pulled into the air at the center of the stones. So was Meghan’s. I could barely breathe as the Black Mist devoured me. Meghan’s body was completely illuminated in red light.
She grabbed my hands and held them tight.
Cassie was right. What the hell was happening?
“Auspes Tutet Oter Bithen.” In that moment, Meghan was something else beyond human. But what?
Thunder cracked as the Black Mist burned through me, electricity sparking through every cell of consciousness within my body. I screamed in pain, my hands still connected to Meghan’s. She wouldn’t let me go.
It was the same pain, euphoria, and electricity I had experienced in The Blood Book at my mom’s ascension. This was real. And it was happening now.
I wasn’t sure how much more I could take without blacking out. And I was sure I was going to die until Meghan finally released me. I couldn’t see a thing within the mist, but I could feel that it was raining. The cool drops on my skin felt more alive than anything I had ever experienced. Well, aside from Jake. It was like the water was life itself.
I was a part of it and it was a part of me. We had merged as one.
Something red glowed through the Black Mist as it began to clear. The amulet. It floated toward me until it entered my chest. Meghan. The amulet. It had been inside her all along. Just like The Book of the Unnamed had been inside me. In many ways, Meghan hiding the amulet within herself was what saved my life.
The rain stopped. And I don’t mean that it had stopped coming down. I mean it literally stopped, each watery droplet locked in time.
My body gently descended, and my feet touched the ground.
I looked around as everyone stared, speechless.
In the next second, it was as though someone had flipped a switch and the rain unlocked itself pouring down onto everyone and everything until quickly clearing.
No one said a word. Cassie was holding Meghan, who moaned while laid out on the ground. She was alive. And how? I had no idea. Maybe the amulet had somehow saved her as well.
I was about to speak when something swooshed my way knocking me to the ground.
My first thought was stop. There I was, pressed between the wet earth and a girl with long black hair that was covering her face. But it wasn’t Meghan. The girl’s hands were frozen in place around my neck, frozen like the paper in midair my first day of class at All Saints. That had been me all along.
“Let me go,” she gritted through her teeth. Her body remained petrified like wood.
“Riley?” Cassie asked.
“What the fuck?” Mason asked.
“Let me go,” she said again. “I…I won’t hurt you.”
I wasn’t sure it was the smart thing to do, but whatever hold I had on her, I released.
She unwrapped her hands from around my throat and got up on her knees. “You bitch,” she coldly said.
“How is this possible?” Cassie asked.
I was as lost and as dumbfounded as everyone else. Somehow, I had ascended and survived thanks to Meghan and the amulet she’d stolen. However, Riley coming back from the dead and me freezing her in place was a whole other ball of wax.
“You may have brought me back from the grave,” Riley continued, half-crazed, “but this means nothing. What you did to me. What you did to Jake. I will never forgive you. Rest assured. I’ll be back. And your little blood conjuring trick won’t save you the next time.”
Just like that, Riley was gone, flashed out of sight and mind like Jake used to do. Typical of Fallen.
“Again, would somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?” Mason asked.
Riley’s words kept burning through my ears. Brought her back from the grave. Blood conjuring trick. From the grave. From the grave.
“Something’s not right. I’ve got to go,” I said, taking off.
“What? Wait,” Cassie said.
“I can’t. Get Meghan back to school. Tell Sister Clara what happened.”
“What about you?”
“I ascended,” I said, walking backward. “And Riley’s alive. Don’t you know what that means?”
I didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, I tore through the cornfield with what little daylight was left.
23
Why do things happen the way they do? When they do? What forces are really at work moving us across the board like cheap chess pieces?
Riley had come back from the dead. I went over and over it again and again. It should have been impossible. I thought back to nearly three weeks ago. My brain hammered through every moment until finally recalling something. In the boat on the lake—the night Aunt Norah sent me to get the amulet—there was a brief moment when I had wished Riley and Jedidiah were alive again. But it was just a simple thought, me feeling sorry for how I had lost Jedidiah and feeling sorry for how Jake had lost Riley. And yes. I did so with the amulet around my neck. Did just thinking it in my head actually make it happen?
Ascending the way I had. Meghan. The Stone of Origins hiding inside of her this entire time. Somehow, the amulet working through Meghan activated my ascension. But why at that exact moment?
My mind swarmed with more and more questions about Meghan, my ascension, and Riley. If Riley was back from the dead. Then maybe so was Jedidiah. If it was true? Christ.
I didn’t want to think about it, Jedidiah coming back to life only to find himself swept up in an ascension without the amulet. He was just a baby. How would he survive?
My foot pressed harder on the gas as the car sped up on the dimly lit country roads.
I wanted to convince myself that I was overreacting, grasping at straws, but t
he urgency and knot in my gut said otherwise.
Lake Shadowick. I was minutes away. The back of my neck kept itching. Nerves. Anxiety. Fear of possibly getting Jedidiah back only to lose him all over again. I almost couldn’t breathe, let alone believe what was happening. Jedidiah alive.
Not knowing one way or the other was driving me nuts.
I parked at the edge of the woods, got out of the car, and slammed the door. Caught in a loop of disbelief and dread, adrenaline pumped through my heart a mile a minute.
I raced through the woods with a mini flashlight in my hands focused on one thing. Jedidiah.
It didn’t take long to get to the lake. And the moon was still bright from the previous night. For a second, I thought about finally being an actual water conjurer, but there was no time to test or reflect on any of it.
“Jedidiah!” I yelled out. No one answered.
I combed the shore desperately calling out his name, almost as if we had been playing hide-and-go-seek and he was bent on not coming out from hiding. The knots in my stomach tightened and twisted as the smell of something burning moved through the air.
I walked up and down the shore, calling out his name again and again like a crazy person. There was no answer. Nothing. And I was losing patience because the angst in my gut said otherwise.
Calm down. I stopped for a moment and just listened. The waves of the lake gently rolled up to shore. And the wind blew through the pine trees that surrounded the place. There were moments in between the sounds, gaps where there was only silence. It was in those gaps that I heard the faint beating of a heart. And not my own.
I followed the sound to a pile of seaweed that lay further down the shore with large bare feet coming out of it, too big to be a child’s. On the ground were burn marks where lighting had struck. The pattern formed what looked like the branches of a tree.
The seaweed, or whoever was underneath, moaned.
I attempted to part the matted, slippery substance to see who it was when the damn thing sent a volt of electricity that bolted through my system. Mother-fracker…and son of a...
I tried again and uncovered the face of a boy close to my age if not older. His head was full of platinum blonde curls. He moaned again as though waking up from a long nap.
He then looked up at me with the eyes of a child. “Play?” he asked.
Holy shit. It wasn’t possible. Jedidiah had died at the age of five, not seventeen.
“Peebles,” he moaned.
“Jedidiah?”
“Mr. Peebles.”
Spooked or not, that was all I needed to hear. I quickly gave Jedidiah my sweater. Good thing I liked them big and baggy. I then made him a sort of seaweed skirt. It would have to do until we could get back to the car and back home to the one place I knew he would be safe, Aunt Vye’s. She grew up around magic and the paranormal. Hopefully, she wouldn’t crap her pants.
We were about to leave when something glowed and stirred in the water.
Jedidiah squeezed my hand tighter almost crushing it. I forgot he was still a five-year-old in a teenager’s body.
It was Ezra. Time seemed to freeze. I recalled how I had reached out to him for help, only to be rejected.
He stepped closer to us from out of the water and put his hand out to touch Jedidiah’s face. Jedidiah seemed okay with it. Me? Not so much.
Ezra smiled, believe it or not, his pale glowing hand reaching Jedidiah’s cheek.
“I was wrong to turn you away,” Ezra said, glancing at me. “So much death. Sacrifice for something I stopped believing in. You, Elizabeth.”
I was speechless. Stunned. I thought he hated me, blamed me for everything that had happened to everyone in the village. And, well, he had.
Ezra’s eyes watered. “I’m sorry.”
I could feel what he was feeling, an insurmountable amount of pain and regret turned to hope. As much as I wanted to hate him for not helping me when I needed him, I couldn’t. The empath wouldn’t let me. The guy meant what he said. Maybe it took ascending and bringing Jedidiah back from the dead for all that to happen. If so, so be it. The bottom line was that he finally believed in me. My grandfather. More importantly, both Jedidiah and I had ascended and survived.
“This belongs to you.” Ezra pulled out the monkey’s paw I had thrown in the lake. “If you ever need me again, I promise I will be there.”
I took the paw and nodded.
“One good turn deserves another. The mark at the back of your neck…”
What mark?
“The one you keep itching,” he said.
Holy crap. Ezra was reading my thoughts.
“With practice, you’ll be able to do the same. The mark is from the amulet. A rose, the mark of Eve. I thought it would have been your mother, but you are her. And she is you, the bringer of new light. New magic. Lilith is your shadow, yes. But she plays an important role in all of this, as we all do. Don’t cut her out. It won’t work. But don’t underestimate her, either. You won’t win by fighting her. The two of you are reflections of the same thing.”
Go figure. Ezra’s words sounded like my talk with Pinkleton on electricity and magnetism. How they were theoretically the same source. “Then what do I do?”
“Only when you find the light can you embrace the dark. And only when you embrace the dark, can you find the light.”
“Oh, for crying out loud. Could you translate into English?”
Ezra laughed. And I don’t know why because I was dead serious.
“That’s my first gift to you.”
Find the light, embrace the dark. He was worse than Sister Clara and a Hallmark card.
“This is my second.” Ezra turned to the water and passed his hand over it. He then gestured for me to go and look.
I tried letting go of Jedidiah’s hand, but he wouldn’t hear of it and came with me.
In the water was the reflection of Jake. He had been beaten, battered. His wings were ripped from his back just like they had been in my dreams. My heart sank. My eyes watered. I had failed him. If I had only trusted my instincts from the beginning. If I had only done more, worked harder. Faster.
“Midnight will be his last breath. After that, I’m sorry.”
“How do I find him?”
“That’s the easy part. He’s in a place called The Looking Glass. Use the book inside of you to find the spell that will let you crossover. You’re a conjurer now, you can handle the book through the light of Eve inside of you. The book will only open the portal. You will still need the power of the four elements to hold the portal long enough for you to enter. I’m also afraid those generators you’re working on won’t cut it. You’ll need your friends. Once in The Looking Glass, grab Jake as fast as you can and use the book to come back.”
There was barely time. It was already after nine. I still had to get Jedidiah somewhere safe, and as much as I didn’t want to ask, I needed the girls. But there was still a bigger problem.
“What about the demon?”
Ezra had already started backing away into the water. “Trust your instincts, and remember, only when you find the light can you embrace the dark. And only when you embrace the dark, can you find the light.” Ezra’s voice drifted into nothing.
He was gone. And was he kidding? That was his advice for fighting a demon?
I fastened Jedidiah up in the front seat of the car. Still sleepy, he didn’t seem to mind. I then texted Josie and Cassie to let them know I would need their help one more time in channeling the four elements, and to meet me back at the cornfield. I all-capped that Jake would be dead by midnight if they didn’t. I was desperate and wasn’t sure they would answer. It was a lot to ask. Both risky and dangerous.
Luckily, Cassie and Josie wasted no time texting that they would be there. Cassie also said she had some new news to tell me about The Four Maidens. I had no idea what that meant and didn’t have time to ask.
I sighed deeply with the realization that both Cassie and Josie really were my fri
ends. It was something I would never doubt again.
Aside from the dread of running out of time to save Jake, the entire ride home was bitter-sweet. As far as Jedidiah, the only thing I could conclude was that ascending somehow pushed him into adolescence incredibly fast. And did I mention he was tall? He had to be almost six feet.
My brother quietly snored and slept most of the way.
The more I thought of him and Riley, the more I thought of how Mrs. Ellington was right. The amulet had the power to bring back the dead. I quickly remembered my bargain with her, how all spells I had done or would do would be null and void if I hadn’t wished for Mr. Ellington to be brought back to life. It was a no-brainer. I made the wish then and there, and crossed my fingers that it would work. I then made the wish for my mom to come back. Imagine being a family again. All of us—my mom, Jedidiah, Aunt Vye, Uncle Jonas, wherever he was, and Jake.
My soul warmed at the idea until it was interrupted by the insane itching at the back of my neck.
Speaking of insane, I still couldn’t figure out why Riley, Jake’s sister, had attacked me. And what kind of place was The Looking Glass? Ezra had said I would need the book to open a portal. But what would I do once I got there? There was still the demon to consider, the one that was holding Jake captive.
My brain shifted into overdrive. What if this whole idea—me saving Jake—was nothing more than one big suicide mission? I didn’t know a damn thing about fighting demons. And honest to God, I wasn’t ready to die.
“No,” I said to myself.
I couldn’t think like that. I had been training with the Lycans for weeks, and they were more than fast, and dangerous. Besides, I had magic. If I could stop a Fallen seraphim from ripping out my throat, I could handle a demon. At least, that’s what I told myself.
I glanced over at Jedidiah who was still out cold.
We were close to Vye’s when he woke up and unbuckled his seat belt. And then buckled it again. And then unbuckled it. And then buckled it again.
