by C. B. Miller
Alex let out a deep breath and frowned. “I’m sure that’s them.” She shook her head, a puzzled look on her face. “This doesn’t make sense. I’ve been gone half the day at most. Events like this just don’t happen out of the blue.”
I returned her puzzled look, “What day is it?”
“Tuesday,” Alex replied haltingly.
“That was three days ago.” I set down the glass and walked over to her. “What’s the last thing you remember before waking up in that chamber?”
“It was my turn to do the grocery shopping. I was at the market, loading the groceries in my car – what’s so funny?”
My stifled laughter burst out in choking gasps as I tried to hold it in. I held up a finger while I gradually regained control. “I’m sorry. But, I’m looking at this place which has to cost my yearly salary in property taxes, and it was your turn to do grocery shopping? Couldn’t you like magic up food, or like the rest of us use a delivery service?”
Alex’s face contorted in anger as her hands shot out to her sides. “Why are you laughing and cracking shitty jokes at everything? My circle is dead. Every one of them, dead! Gone!” She screamed in frustration, tears running down her cheeks. The temperature in the room rose by several degrees, and the air started to shimmer around her.
I slowly sheathed my weapon, set down the cup, and met her furious gaze. “I made jokes because you weren’t mad. You weren’t anything.” I gestured widely at everything. “I get it. Stoicism is the way because others will use our emotions against us. I value being hard when things are going crazy, and we’re in the thick of it. Presently we are not in any danger. This here, this is a tomb, left to mock those left behind to find. I have a hard time trusting people who don’t show me who they really are in these types of moments. And if their deaths hadn’t bothered you; if their loss was just another day doing business – I don’t know if I could have trusted you for what’s coming next.”
“And what is that?” Her voice boomed in the room, stinging my ears.
I rested my hand on Ekurzakir’s Judgment and smiled, “We find the bastard that did this and kill him.”
Chapter Eighteen
We needed rest, and my room back at Eden’s Garden wasn’t going to cut it for three people unless we were about to get real comfortable with each other. Eden possessed an ultra-low opinion of mages based on her hatred of magic. Something that felt disingenuine, seeing as one of her closest allies was an uber-powerful magic-wielding vampire. The important piece was that Eden wasn’t going to roll out the red carpet to host a mage. Or one of the wizards responsible in part at least for stealing Ekurzakir’s Judgment and the deaths of the team assigned to transport it.
After Alex reassured me multiple times that Rebecca would be asleep for some time, we swept through the rest of the house. I was drained from the day’s events, and the head wound hadn’t helped either. I could tell from Alex’s hyper-focus that she was running on pure adrenaline and anger. Even though I disrupted the ritual, and she looked fine, I could tell the magics hurt her in some intangible manner I didn’t understand. An hour later, we completed our exhaustive search of the house and found nothing that helped us identify our mystery villain. True to her word, Rebecca was still asleep when we returned to my car. Her sleep was deep enough that I was able to carry her to a guest room and get her situated without her stirring.
Alex asked me to meet her when I was finished. The den had two eight feet long standing desks, each with a compact desktop computer and dual monitors on swing arms. The desks were the motorized type that moved up and down at the click of a button, and the sight of them brought back memories of simpler times. Of my old life in IT. Built-in bookshelves covered every wall, jammed with books. Unlike The Grey’s library, these were all neatly ordered, and some sort of labeling system marked each shelf. Sitting in one of the six overstuffed lounge chairs was Alex, leaning forward, intently watching me as I entered the room.
I paused in the doorway at the sight of my bag lying on the floor next to Alex’s chair. She beckoned for me to sit in the chair closest to her and a moan of relief escaped as I sat down in it. It was like sitting down on a cloud, and then tiny motors began to massage me.
“Thanks. Nice crib you have here. This is leaps and above what I’m used to. I appreciate you letting us stay here tonight. And thank you for not leaving her back there.”
“You didn’t have to save me either. Rebecca probably would have led you out safely.”
“Maybe, but that wasn’t why I broke you out. You were there against your will. Leaving you to die would have been wrong,”
“What if I had been willing and was really angry you messed things up?”
“That was a risk I was willing to take. Let’s just say I didn’t have the impression that was the case.”
“You know, I’d be lying it if I said it didn’t cross my mind to leave her there. She could have slowed down that beast chasing you. What was that thing in the tunnel?”
“Damned if I know. Hopefully, we’ll never find out either.”
Alex leaned forward a bit in her chair. “So, do you have a plan?”
I shrugged. “Not really. There still some missing pieces about this guy, but there’s still someone from Bertha’s circle who knows who he is. Worst comes to worst, I think we have a way of dragging him out in the open if we can’t find her.”
The two of us talked for some time as I described the events of the last twenty-four hours. She listened intently, asking very few questions as I recalled fighting Bertha, Megan’s escape, and the strange creatures I fought at the Manticore pack’s sanctum. When I explained the link between Bertha’s circle and Ekurzakir’s Judgment, the assault on Robert and the others, and how it all had to be linked somehow, Alex tensed and leaned forward.
She reached down into my bag, pulled out the tome Stanley gave me and set it in her lap. The same book Markus the Grey freaked out on me about. From the one part of my day I’d left out of the story. I brushed the thought away and sat in the chair closest to her.
Alex arched an eyebrow and tapped the tome’s cover twice.
I blew out a long breath. Stalling for time, no matter how short, was more so I could figure out where to begin. Alex’s body was relaxed, in the same way a cat noticed their favorite prey and was deciding if getting up to catch it was worth the effort or not. Information was both currency and a form of power among the supernatural community. A little went a long way usually. Letting someone in on everything carried a lot of risks too. The risk of being betrayed, the risk of no long possessing anything the other party values. The list goes on and on.
Baring one’s soul and what they know also builds trust, and as much as I didn’t want to admit to myself – I was going to need outside help.
Alex tapped the book harder, returning my attention to her and the book.
“Stanley gave me that book this morning. I can’t read it. I don’t know why he gave it to me either.”
“Who’s Stanley?”
“Stanley. The owner of Stanley’s Antiques. The ghostly owner?”
Alex’s face scrunched together for a moment, and she pursed her lips. “Hmm, I don’t like antiques, and I can’t say I’ve ever heard of him.”
“Huh, I assumed everyone in our little community knew him. He’s not a bad dude. Normally.” My blood turned to ice as I remembered the parchment he had me sign in blood.
Alex ran her fingers over the cover and flipped the massive book over gently, examining the aged leather binding. “He’s a ghost, you said?”
I nodded, but she didn’t look up from the book. “Yeah, he’s a ghost,” I added softly a few seconds later.
Alex made an unintelligible noise in agreement, flipping the book over once more to examine its cover. She held up the book, looking over its spine as the silence dragged out. Finally, she laid the book on her lap again and looked up at me.
“Why would a ghost give you a necromancer’s grimoire, I wonder.” She whis
pered.
“I’m not the mage type, actually –“ I clamped my mouth shut. I wasn’t sure that revealing my little quirk when it comes to mentally influencing me was important. She knew something about this book and already told me more than The Grey or Stanley had about it.
Alex cocked her head to the side as she looked at me. “You really don’t know shit about magic, do you?”
“I thought that was what I just said.”
Alex bobbed her head. “Necromancers are – different. Technically, the term necromance refers to a person who wields magic that deals with death, but they are not mages or wizards. They are conduits between life and death, and it’s that connection to the realm of the dead that gives them their powers.”
I shifted uncomfortably in the chair and leaned back. The muscles in my back and shoulders clenched as I motioned for Alex to continue. The way she said ‘conduits’ felt off to me for some reason. Gesturing to the books surrounding us, “I get there’s a difference. What makes a necromancer’s grimoire different from these books or from a mage’s grimoire even?”
“Several major differences, but one of them is their grimoire follows them to wherever it is we go when we die. That means this necromancer is alive.” She waved the book in the air for a moment.
“That doesn’t explain the High Lord, though. He’s a vampire and a necromancer.”
“I’ll let you ponder that possibility.”
A cold shiver ran through my body. A dozen questions ran through my mind, and I pushed them away to focus on Alex. There was something else that bothered her besides the book being in my possession. “That sounds bad, but I have a feeling that’s not the worst of it?”
Alex shifted uncomfortably in her chair and leaned back. She held the book in from of her face to show me the cover. Several words were scrawled across it in a script I didn’t recognize. “Do you know what it says?”
“I don’t even recognize what language that is.”
“It’s Sumerian.”
“Ok, why’s that bad?” I tried to relax and unclench my back, but I might as well have been trying to have a rational conversation on the Internet. My geographic knowledge was lacking, and I knew it. It didn’t bother me being wrong about something, but I hated it when I was totally ignorant of something I feel I should know. It sounded like one of the countries in Africa at first, but I was thinking of Somalia or Sudan. “Where is Sumer?”
“Was. Sumer was roughly where modern-day Iraq is now. Sumerian was also one of the scripts used by the Babylonians. This hasn’t been used in three or four thousand years, and definitely not in a leather-bound book.”
“So maybe this necromancer just likes archaic things. You know, like writing in runes or journaling in Klingon like a good friend of mine.”
The whites of Alex’s eyes shone, and she shook her head. “Necromancer’s grimoires are always written in their mother tongue. The first language they learn how to read and write.”
“So, you’re telling me that I have the personal journal of some three to four thousand year old necromancer?”
Alex nodded.
“Fuck me.”
***
Sleep came and went in a blink of an eye. I didn’t feel rested as every bruise, scrape, and cut begged for my attention. I kept waking up to the sounds of whispering, which combined with my already enhanced feeling of unease at sleeping in an unfamiliar place, left me feeling drained. The aroma of fresh coffee lifted my spirits as I slid out of bed.
Following my nose to the kitchen, my stomach growled over as Alex poured a fresh cup for me. She was dressed in yoga pants, a tee-shirt sporting a mash up of several popular science fiction shows, and smiled at me. “Food will have to wait. Neither of us is going to want to eat for what comes next.”
A knot replaced the empty void in my stomach as I remembered this morning’s grim task. Tearing down the ritual space and laying her friends to rest. Eden has a team of cleaners for such tasks, and I offered to call them in. As expected, she had declined.
Her eyes were puffy, and she slumped in her chair as we drank our coffee in silence. I felt bad for tearing down her resolve last night as I watched her stare into her cup. Uncertain of what I should do, I stood up and walked to the doorway. She looked up, and I motioned that it was time.
We spent the next hour, carefully removing her friends from the stakes, to rest in two other rooms. Alex’s casual demeanor evaporated as she directed my every action with rigid and precise instructions. She hadn’t mentioned last night what was going to happen with their bodies, but I figured there must be some type of sacred rite mages perform for their fallen from her guarded words and how she directed me now.
Alex closed the door to the ritual room and leaned up against it, weariness etched across her entire body. Her face glistened from sweat, and we were both covered in bits of gore. A trail of muck lead from the corrupted ritual space to the other rooms.
“I think we need showers. Probably should have gotten some plastic or something too. I’ll grab a mop and clean this up first.”
Alex’s eyes cleared, and she blinked at me like she just now realized I was standing there. “Oh, thanks, but I’ve got it.”
She waved her hand as she muttered something unintelligible, and a wave of invisible energy brushed against me. It felt like a million tiny hands scrubbing me as every trace of our grisly task was washed from me. The rips, tears, and holes in my clothing mended as the magic remade it whole. The wave flowed down the hall, and in a few seconds, everything was spotlessly clean.
I pursed my lips, impressed. “Any chance you could teach me that trick?”
Like most jobs, Eden didn't give me a clothing allowance, and I’ve ruined more than a few sets over the past few months in fights. I kept spare clothing in the car for that very reason. I’m glad I didn’t change into a set this morning before cleaning. My shirt and pants felt like they were brand new, off the rack.
Alex gave me a wan smile and shook her head. “I don’t know about you, but I’m still not hungry.”
My stomach soured at the thought of food, and she returned my grimace.
Alex shuffled her feet and lowered her head, “I was thinking about it last night. I appreciate your offer to help me find and kill this mystery mage, but I think you’re out of your league. The best way for you to help is to not get in the way.”
“I figured you say something like that.”
“I appreciate your help. Really. I – I don’t know if I could have taken them down on my own. I’m serious, though. Someone with enough mojo to take seven wizards by surprise. Alone. That’s not exactly something you and I beat.”
“Oh, so you are just going to let them go?”
“Absolutely not. It’s probably suicide, if I’m being honest, but there’s nothing else I can do. It’s not like I have a ton of allies to call on,” she sighed and wiped a strand of hair out of her face, “the perils of being a mage, I guess.”
“Sure, not with that attitude. I’m literally standing right here, offering to work with you.” I loudly cleared my throat as she tried to interrupt me. “It might be suicide; it might not. At the very least, I have to find out who did this. And I promise you, if it is something we can’t handle, I personally beseech Segane to deal with the threat. I’m sure Eden would agree. This guy is behind more than just the murder of your circle.”
Her frown deepened. “Why don’t you just call her in now?”
“I’m not sure if you ever had a corporate job, but it’s kind of like that. I can’t just run to the CEO to solve the issue I’ve been tasked with because it looks difficult. We don’t know if this mystery man actually exists or not. Maybe Bertha was behind it all. Rebecca’s not exactly all there.”
Alex lifted her chin and glared at me. “You can’t possibly believe that Bertha did all this?”
“Nope, but unless I can say for certain or who did at least have a plausible suspect, I can’t rule it out either.”
Her face t
ightened, and she drew her lips into a fine line while she looked me up and down. “Grab your things and meet me in the study.” Some of the fire came back into her eyes as she straightened, turned, and walked away.
***
I entered the study, sword strapped to my belt, and secured my backpack. I had expected Alex to be similarly dressed. Maybe some specialized robe, or a cool duster cloak and a staff. Instead, she was leaning over a drafting table in the same outfit, albeit wearing a Blackhawks jersey top.
My previous experiences with mages were limited to Markus The Grey, and I wasn’t sure if his casual style was a personal quirk or another difference between mages and wizards. The Grey’s outfits always consisted of simple blue jeans, a tee-shirt, and a hoodie or jacket. He seemed eccentric enough that he didn’t need or didn’t warrant the trapping of power that hedge wizards like Bertha so coveted. Bertha and the other wizards I met often wore all sorts of occult jewelry and clothes, much like I expected Alex to be wearing now.
Alex looked up and chuckled, noticing the slight frown on my face. “Something wrong?”
“Umm, sure, but I thought you might have some sort of battle gear?”
“Oh, you mean like some chainmail, a huge sword or maybe long gray robes, and a wizard’s staff to go with my long white beard?”
“Well, kinda yes,” I responded sheepishly.
“That’s a bit stereotypical, don’t you think?” She patted her side, “Besides, my sword is with my other pants.” She turned her attention back to the drafting table and resumed writing.
I laughed and joined her at the table. I looked over her shoulder at a mind map as she worked on it.
She glanced up, “And here, I would have thought you’d understand the value freedom of movement when it comes to fighting. And comfort.” Her eyes glimmered with mirth as she clasped her hands together and stepped away from the drafting table.
