With a quick prayer to Gaia, I drew the blade with my right hand and cupping my left hand, sliced across my palm. My stomach flipped at the initial cold shock of the athame entering my skin, the awareness of damage before the nerve endings had time to register it. And then came the sharp, hot sting of pain. I drew in a sharp breath, as the blood welled from the cut and started to drip onto the floor. I hoped I hadn’t cut too deeply. I wiped the athame on my jeans, resheathed it, and put it back in my pocket.
Centering my mind, I focused again on the group of familiars standing outside of the door. My goal was to hit them twice with the dread sigil. Once to cause enough damage to draw them to me, and a second time to put them down permanently, corrupting their bodies with the charged blood magic. The primary spell would target up to six enemies within the blood forged sigil once it was cast. The after effect would deal a lingering curse of corruption, weakening them second by second. I hoped I would have enough time to cast a second sigil.
I dipped my right pointer finger in the blood and began the ritual chant under my breath, tracing the outline of the sigil in the air.
As I drew the sigil, the familiar closest to me turned, sniffing. It squealed and, extending both arms forward, ran for the north doorway. Its compatriots, noticing the change, followed.
With an effort of will, I flung the completed sigil at the approaching group, blood from my left hand splattering the door frame.
The blood sigil hit as they crossed the floor to me, outlining their bodies in a complicated red pattern of magical intent. The closest familiar screamed and fell, a shiny anima charge popping out of its disintegrating body. The second made it all the way to the doorway before it dropped to the ground. The third and fourth continued their charge as I scrambled to create a second sigil. I wasn’t going to make it in time—I wasn’t fast enough. Blood magic sucked!
They crossed the threshold into the library to my further alarm. But, I then realized, they were now close enough for me to use chaos magic as a fallback. With a sigh of relief, I unleashed pandemonium. Gold and purple strands of chaos caught the two remaining familiars in a wash of power, and threw them forcefully to the ground, breaking their backs with a snap, snap. Dutifully, two brightly glowing anima charges popped out of the bodies as they dematerialized into the air.
Gypcie cheered. I wasn’t so happy. I had been successful in eliminating the familiars, but I was disappointed in myself. I should have had time to draw that second sigil. I would have if I had practiced more.
Blood magic didn’t suck; I did.
Feeling glum I walked over to Gypcie to collect the W.A.N.D. and walked back to get the four anima charges. Using a dirty handkerchief from my pocket, I did my best to clean up every speck of my blood on the floor and door frame. It wouldn’t do to let that fall into the wrong hands. Then, putting the W.A.N.D. between my knees and using my right hand and my teeth, I tied the handkerchief around the palm of my left hand to cover the wound. It throbbed in time to the beat of my heart and head.
This was definitely not my favorite day ever.
Gypcie hobbled over to me and, taking the W.A.N.D, created an anima shard, which she then fed into the crystal globe of the Ward Generator. With a burst of golden light, the generator pushed four beams of anima out in each of the cardinal directions, amping up and reinforcing the library’s wards.
It took a few minutes, but before long all four were glowing bright blue and pulsing with energy. I heaved a sigh of relief. We were safe for a while. The Hexbound, the plotter, and the rest of the posse of familiars continued to stand at the south entrance, staring in at us.
It was unnerving. Gypcie and I both made our way back to the table tucked behind the library shelves, out of their direct line of sight. Gypcie pulled out a wooden chair and sat down with palpable relief. I moved an overturned chair with a visible blood stain on it and the floor underneath it, before choosing another and scooting it around the table beside her. I couldn’t help but wonder if that blood had once belonged to Ruby since this was the table where we’d found the book.
“Does your ankle still hurt?”
“Like a mother. I can walk on it, but it’s really throbbing.”
I looked around us. Unfortunately, there was no handy first-aid kit laying around with painkillers and a brace to help her.
“You know, if you were willing, I wouldn’t mind if you tried a blood magic healing spell on it,” she suggested gently.
After a moment’s alarm, I realized that I probably did have enough skill to do a basic blood heal on her ankle. And, since I already had plenty of blood available, I wouldn’t even have to cut myself again. In fact, I could heal my own hand while I was at it.
“That’s a good idea,” I acknowledged. “But let me do my hand first so I’ve got a little practice in before I try your ankle.”
Using blood magic to harm created corruption and that corruption in enough quantity could hurt the caster, inflicting greater damage the more offensive spells you used. Healing with blood, on the other hand, led to a state of sacrifice that at high enough levels created martyrdom. They were opposite ends of the coin, and it was challenging to switch between the two rapidly. What I was going to attempt now, however, was fine. The effects of the corruption had been slowly wearing off, I realized, as my mood improved. While I still didn’t love blood magic, I didn’t hate it. Nor did I hate myself any longer—the rising corruption had put me into a depression, I acknowledged.
Healing, on the other hand, would put me into a state of serenity and peace—at least as I attempted the minor healing spell. Switching between the two in a short period of time definitely made me feel a little bipolar.
I unwrapped my hand and cleaned off the unclotted blood as best as I could with the cleanish end of the bloodied handkerchief. Then, once again whispering a prayer to Gaia, I cast a small mend spell. Within moments, the slice in my hand started to heal before my eyes. The pain and throbbing subsided as I cast it again. The wound was not entirely recovered yet, but I didn’t want to have to cut myself anew to heal Gypcie. I definitely was feeling more positive about being able to do it now.
I reached down and put my right hand on her injured ankle over her jeans. Convalesce would have her ankle feeling better in no time, as well as restoring her to full health. It was a slightly more difficult healing spell, but I thought it was well within my capabilities. I gave my left hand a squeeze to get the blood flowing in the cut again, ignoring the slight blossom of pain, and dipped my right pointer finger into the small drops that escaped the wound. Focusing on Gypcie, I traced a glowing rune in the air which flashed neon red. A bubble of red and gold light surrounded her, and the pain etched in her face disappeared.
“That is remarkable,” she said, carefully moving her ankle in circles checking its mobility. “My ankle feels as good as new. Thanks, Wedd.”
“You’re welcome, and technically it is. I invoked a convalescence. That spell essentially compresses the time it might normally take you to heal, but you have healed.”
With Gypcie taken care of, I took a moment to complete my own recovery with one last mend spell, then clenched and opened my fingers. My palm was unblemished. I could feel a sense of peace creeping languidly over my body. OK, weird. This was actually one of the reasons I didn’t love blood magic. It was like taking hormone pills—I wasn’t entirely in control of my emotions. Kinda PMS squared. If I got the urge to sing “Kumbaya,” there was going to be trouble.
“I’ve got just one favor to ask now,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“Can you burn this kerchief for me?”
Gypcie smiled, holding out her hand. “No problem.”
I crumpled it into a ball and handed it to her. She tossed the bloodied handkerchief into the air and fire-balled it with a whoosh. Ashes rained down on the floor in front of us.
“I see what you did there, by the way.”
Gypcie smiled again, only bigger this time.
“A
re they still there? My gods I’ve got to pee.” I groaned bumping my head against the wooden table dramatically. “And I’m hungry. Fish pie actually is sounding kind of good.”
The daylight from the glass dome above the library had faded a while ago, and the orange and pink twilight was clearly visible in the sky above it. We’d been stuck here at least an hour. Thank goodness the library had some small reading lamps scattered around the room, including the one on our table.
Gypcie got up from where she had been cleaning her pistols and reloading her clips, and peered around the far end of the bookshelves to the south entrance. I could see the flashes of light from that direction, where a suspended lamp blinked on and off over the door, not doing a damn thing for the mood.
“They’re still there, but surely you aren’t that desperate yet. I mean about eating fish pie,” she clarified, pulling a face at the thought, as she walked back to the table.
I didn’t have a good answer for that, so instead I reflected on what to do next.
“Let’s review here for a second. We know we’ve got a wraith. We know we have Headmaster Montag’s blood waiting for us in the Administration Offices…if we ever get back there,” I added with a scowl.
“We found the book about wraiths and figured out that we’ll need a mirror to summon it. We still need the summoning ritual, and we still need to figure out how to find the wraith,” Gypcie said.
“More blood magic,” I said with a groan. “And what do we do with it once we find it? I don’t know if we’re strong enough to stop a wraith.”
“Well, what else do we know about them?”
“We know firsthand that this one carries a wicked scythe.”
“Thanks for bringing up that particular memory as we sit here in the dark.”
Full dark had indeed fallen in the last few minutes. The moonlight poured through the library dome, lighting the wooden floors in weird rhomboid patterns. I shivered. It was chilly in the building, despite my letter jacket and leggings.
Gypcie picked up Elemental Assassins 101 and began flipping through the pages. “It says here that ‘wraiths are a more dangerous and hateful form of a specter.’ They are ‘basically death incarnate. One must muster courage to stand against this formidable opponent.’”
“Again with the duh! Is there something there we don’t know? What’s it say next? ‘Watch out for the scythe.’?”
“It does. It does actually say that.”
I facepalmed.
“Here’s something interesting. The book calls them ‘ghost lieutenants,’ which would mean that they perhaps can control lesser specters?”
“What does it say about familiars?” I asked dryly.
“I think we have a bit of a special case here…not everyone has a zillion creepy familiars running around. Just us.”
Something about what Gypcie read reminded me of our earlier conversation. “So, if they’re lieutenants, they not only have soldiers, they also have a general.”
Gypcie’s eyes opened wide. “Jaysus! You’re right. I forgot totally about that in the scuffle. This wraith was sent by the Peacock King.”
“So who is that?” I asked.
“Good question,” Gypcie whipped out her phone. “We’ll start with the Yazidis.”
“Are you going to check the card catalog again?”
“Nah, Wikipedia. It’ll be faster.”
In short order, Gypcie had found a connection. Apparently, the Peacock King’s real name was Tawsi Melek, the primary deity for the Yazidis, which were a nomadic tribe in Iraq who had one of the oldest known religions. Tawsi Melek had another name in some dark magical circles—Adrammelech, best known as the right-hand man for Samael.
“Yikes. Go big or go home, Montag. He definitely messed with the wrong pantheon on this one.” I said.
“Well, it was a death curse,” Gypcie said, her face illuminated by the light of her phone. “It’s not like those come from fluffy bunny gods and goddesses.”
“So basically, Adrammelech sent this wraith to call in the debt for the death curse Montag uttered when he was a kid.”
She nodded. “That’s what it sounds like.”
“Jeez.” I said, sarcastically. “Here we are trapped in the library by angry familiars that are basically working as foot soldiers for an Iblis look-alike. What was I worried about graduation for? I’m not going to live through the night.”
I was blustering to try to contain my fear. What was really bothering me about the whole situation was how in the seven hells the Headmaster and Ms. Usher thought that Gypcie and I were up to this trial? I wasn’t sure we were, and it was, in fact, the seven hells we’d be dealing with, if I remembered the Qliphoth section in last year’s Demonology class correctly.
“Now we need the card catalog,” Gypcie said. “We know the book of curses that Montag used must be available in the library. Carter has seen it.”
She searched for a few minutes. “This is promising. The Meshaf Resh, or ‘Black Book’ that tells the story of creation by Tawsi Melek in the Yazidi tradition.”
“Nah, that’s too tame. There are a ton of creation myths in world religions.”
Gypcie continued to scroll through information on her phone. “Here’s another: The Kitêba Cilwe or ‘Book of Revelations,’ which Tawsi Melek supposedly wrote, says that he alone has the authority to allocate responsibilities, blessings, and misfortunes and that humankind better not question him.”
“We get that Adrammelech is a Big Bad,” I said. “I don’t even think we need to find the original curse. I don’t frankly want to find it. I just want to know how to find and summon his spectral hitman.”
“Maybe we don’t have to summon it,” Gypcie suggested.
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe it’ll come to us if we give it a portal to jump through. Like fishing. We have the right bait.”
“Montag’s blood. You’re right! I bet that will work. If we can figure out where the wraith is hiding out on the astral, we can bring a mirror and put some of the blood on it to draw the wraith out!”
A screech erupted from the south passage. Gypcie and I looked up in alarm, and both bolted down to the far end of the bookcase perpendicular to our table and peered around to see what was happening.
The familiars were still there, moving restlessly in the threshold behind the ward. The Hexbound looked into the room with increased menace—or at least it looked like increased menace in the darkness—but did not appear to notice us from where we were hiding around the corner of the bookcase.
Oddly some of the familiars had turned their bodies in such a way that their arms, not their chests, were facing the wards. I shared a look with Gypcie. What were they doing?
Behind us, we heard a scratching at the east doors. They bumped slightly in their frames. Something was trying those doors. We crept quietly, listening to see if we could hear anything more. The scratching, like a dog that wanted to go outside, continued.
“What now?” I mouthed to Gypcie.
She shrugged her shoulders, her eyes wide. We crept back to the table, just in time for the west doors to begin to shake in their frames, but more loudly and persistently. A general squawking and squeaking had started from the group on the south side. Were they communicating in some fashion?
I tapped Gypcie’s shoulder to get her attention and pointed to the bookcase on the northeast side of the room beyond our table. Using hand signals, I communicated that we should move to that side. Staying low and quiet, we ran behind the case, waiting out of the sight of the south doorway as best as we could. As we moved, the volume of the squawking increased—clearly some had seen us move—but died down again once we were fully hidden.
I moved to the far north end of that bookcase and peered around to look at the north doorway. Just as I feared, there was now a cluster of familiars there as well. Some were peering intently into the room. Others had turned to the side and were as close as possible to the threshold (and the ward) as they could
presumably get without triggering it. This was not good.
“They’ve got us surrounded, Gypcie,” I said as quietly as I could. “I think they’re trying to gather information. What did the wraith book say…something about seeing this plane through the victim’s eyes? Maybe it can see through the eyes of the familiars?”
“And hear through their ears,” she nodded. “I think that’s why some are lined up with the sides of their bodies next to the door.”
Fresh fear filled my body.
“Did we just give the wraith our master plan?” I whispered.
Gypcie looked grave. “I think we better assume we did,” she said under her breath.
We both sat down against the backside shelves on the floor, keeping our ears open and a wary eye on the east doors. What were we going to do next? The familiars couldn’t get in as long as the wards were charged—that gave us at least a day—but neither could we leave unless we wanted to fight our way through.
We sat there in silence. I went over our earlier conversation in my head, again and again. We hadn’t even considered that we were being eavesdropped on, so we hadn’t minded the volume, but it wasn’t like we were yelling. Although we had gotten a little loud as we got excited about the plan. I blew out a breath. We might be screwed.
“Maybe we don’t have to summon it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe it’ll come to us if we give it a portal to jump through. Like fishing. We have the right bait.”
What could the wraith figure out about that? It would almost certainly, if it had the information and it was smart enough, figure out we planned to summon it into a trap. What could it do with that information? Not come when we summoned it? That wouldn’t be good, but it wouldn’t be catastrophic if we could figure out another way. Come prepared for the trap? Well, that wouldn’t be great, but since we would also be prepared, that might not be the worst possibility either.
Round and round I went in my head. I was frightened and exhausted. I glanced over at Gypcie. She looked like death warmed over.
“Do you want to try to get some sleep? I’ll stay up and keep watch.” I whispered.
To Sir, with Love: An Unofficial Legend of The Secret World (Unofficial Legends of The Secret World Book 1) Page 5
