The Third Sin

by Tamara Geraeds

  Quinn stands up and ruffles through his black curls. “Since I can’t come with you, I’d better get back to my other duties.”

  For a moment my mind whirls with the possibilities of what he could mean. What are the duties of an angel as high as he is? Does he have a meeting with God himself? Does he have to keep the order in Heaven?

  I shake off the thoughts and images. Those questions are irrelevant right now. We need to focus. I need to focus.

  I hold out my hand to him and we bump fists. “Thank you so much for helping, mate.”

  Helping is the understatement of the century, but it’s all I can think of now.

  As Quinn leaves, Mona kisses me on the cheek and gestures to the ceiling. “I’m going to check on Susan again. I’ll send you a message when she wakes up. It can’t be long now.”

  She turns to the others and blows them all a kiss. “Good luck. Be safe.”

  “Charlie, can you-“

  “I’m coming with you,” he says before I can finish.

  The fear of what’s coming subsides a bit. “That’s great.”

  Thanks to Vicky’s pocket full of supplies, it doesn’t take long to prepare the cloaking spell. And to make sure no one will be able to see us, I change the words a bit. We can’t cast it yet, or people will think Phoenix is driving herself around town.

  As everyone files into the car, I take a moment to talk to D’Maeo.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m fine, master.”

  Him addressing me like that already tells me he isn’t telling me the truth. “Did you recover from the fall into the lake of blood?”

  “Yes, Qaddisin healed me.”

  “Could he do anything about the parts of your soul that were taken by the black void?”

  He starts walking to the open front door. “I didn’t ask. We’ve got more important things to do.”

  I stare at his back as it disappears through the front door. Well, I guess that’s the end of the conversation. The old ghost must be in worse shape than I thought if he avoids my questions like that. Another item on the list of things that should be dealt with as soon as possible.

  With a giant brick in my stomach, I walk out the door and close it behind me.

  D’Maeo shoots me a reassuring smile from the back window and I smile back despite everything. If someone who’s missing several parts of his soul can be positive, then so can I.

  Lucky for us, Kale smashed in Craig’s nose while he was still in Blackford. Now it only takes us a couple of minutes to reach the police station.

  It’s a busy day in town, which makes it hard to find a place where we can cast the spell.

  “What about the parking lot at the Winged Centaur?” I suggest. “It’s not open yet, and if the owner sees us turning invisible, it’s not the end of the world. We can tell him we were just practicing our skills.”

  They all agree and a minute later Charlie and I pretend to chat in front of the café, which is no more than a grass strip to non-magical humans, while waiting for the opportunity to vanish into thin air. At least, that’s what it’ll look like to people walking by.

  Charlie yanks me along when nobody’s looking and as soon as I regain my posture, we hurry into the deserted parking lot.

  We’re halfway through when Vicky’s head jerks up. “Do you hear that? Demons.”

  “Did they see us?” I ask without looking up.

  “No, I think they’re on Main Street, heading for the police station. Hurry up.”

  “Okay okay.”

  As fast as I can without mispronouncing anything, I recite the rest of the spell.

  “Ehm…” Taylar says, his shield firmly in his hand. “There’s a small problem.”

  I whirl around, suspecting to see some sort of demon or other monster blocking our way. But the parking lot is still empty. “What? What’s the problem?”

  Taylar looks at the remains of the spell. “Ehm… can you hear us, Dante?”

  Jeep pushes the rim of his hat up with an impatient look. “Just get to the point, Taylar.” He turns to me. “We can’t see you anymore, Dante.”

  My hand slaps my forehead hard. “Shoot, I forgot to put a line in about friends.”

  Vicky is pointing at the street behind the garden of the hotel next door. “There’s no time to change it now, guys. We really have to go.” She sticks out her arm. “Just grab my hand so I know you’re still with us.”

  Taylar raises his arm, too. “Charlie, grab mine.”

  I smile at my best friend. “At least we can still see each other.”

  We file into the street unseen. Even if we didn’t know where to find the police station, it wouldn’t be hard to find. A small army of lizards with tentacles for feet is making its way down Main Street. They are hissing eagerly, as if they can already smell their prey.

  “We’ll never make it in time,” I say.

  No one responds, so I pull at Vicky’s arm. “We have to create a distraction. Make them turn back.”

  Still no answer. Vicky just keeps walking and the others don’t even look up.

  I meet Charlie’s eye beside me. “They can’t hear us either?”

  “Guys? Stop for a sec,” he says.

  Everyone keeps walking.

  We pull at the same time, making Vicky and Taylar come to a sudden halt.

  “What is it?” Vicky asks.

  “We need a distraction, or we’ll never make it,” I repeat.

  Vicky’s eyes search for my face. “Dante? I can’t hear you. Can you write down what you want to say?”

  “Good thinking.” I pull out my Book of Spells, but realize I don’t have a pen.

  Vicky has probably come to the same conclusion. She reaches into her endless pocket and holds one up.

  I grab it and let go of her hand for a second to rip out a page.

  D’Maeo steps toward us. “There’s no time for this. I’m not sure we’ll make it at all. The demons are moving fast. We should create some sort of distraction.”

  “Yes!” I call out.

  Vicky nods in approval. “That’s a good idea. Dante, squeeze my hand if you agree.”

  I quickly obey.

  “Is that what you wanted to say?” she asks, staring past my face.

  I squeeze again.

  “Okay, great.” She gives me a small smile that is lost on the lamppost beside me. “But we’ll have to come up with something fast.”

  Maël gestures with her staff. “We should keep walking while we think.”

  After only a couple of steps, I let go of Vicky’s hand so I can stuff my book back into place and take out Dad’s notebook. As I flip through it I find exactly what I was hoping for. “I’ve got something,” I tell Charlie. “There’s a new spell in Dad’s notebook.”

  “Great! Write down what you need.”

  As fast as I can without making it illegible, I scribble down the ingredients. At the top of the page, I write a message for the Shield.

  Found spell to create fake army. Combine with Jeep’s army.

  Vicky’s eyes scan the page as soon as I hand it to her.

  “Sounds like a plan,” she says and she explains it to the others.

  Jeep is already rolling up his sleeves. “I’m on it.”

  As he starts waving his hands around to wake the dead, Vicky is emptying her pocket again.

  She places two hand mirrors and a small doll on the ground in front of her and sprinkles the doll with salt.

  “If you drop a little blood on it, the army will look more real,” she tells me.

  With my athame, I make a small incision in my fingertip. When a drop hits the doll, Vicky creates a circle of ground nutmeg, Mexican calea and salvia leaves. Then she steps back. “Ready.”

  After handing Dad’s notebook to Charlie, I pick up the mirrors and turn one of them toward the sun. Then I catch the ray that bounces of the glass into the second mirror and aim it at
the doll.

  Charlie holds the book out in front of me so I can read the spell.

  “Powers unseen, come to me.

  Build an army we can see.

  Make it just as good as real

  in strength and courage, looks and feel.”

  As the grunts of Jeep’s undead army echo through the streets, the doll before me starts to turn. Slowly it rises from the ground, grows into a real size man and splits into two.

  Further along the street, the demons come to a halt and look around, sniffing the air.

  Charlie nudges me. “Keep going.”

  I focus on the rest of the spell, trying to ignore everything around me.

  “Powers of the Earth, I trust in thee.

  Make this army fight for me.

  Let them draw the enemy near,

  and lure the demons out of here.”

  Charlie pulls the notebook closer and studies the text. “That’s not what it says.”

  With a grin, I look up at him. “I changed it a bit. This will work better.”

  He shakes his head. “I am so jealous, you know.”

  I indicate my pants with my head. “Can you put that book back behind my waistband, please?”

  Charlie’s eyebrows shoot up. Then he scrunches up his nose. “Really? You want me to…”

  I shoot him an incredulous look. “Don’t tell me you’re worried about something like that when there’s a bunch of ugly monsters about to charge us.”

  His eyes flash to a point somewhere over my shoulder. “Yeah, that’s stupid.”

  Without another second of hesitation, he grabs my waistband and shoves the notebook behind it. “How much longer before this army is ready?”

  “I don’t know, it didn’t say.”

  Behind Charlie, the grunting gets louder. A line of zombies turns the corner and walks past the Winged Centaur. They snarl and howl as they catch sight of the last demons passing our street on the other end.

  “Come on, come on,” I urge the multiplying warriors.

  Maël slams her wand onto the ground. “They’re coming our way.”

  “Then we are leaving,” I say. I nod at Charlie. “Write it down for them. We are going to get Kale, these armies will keep the demons busy.”

  He salutes. “Yes, sir.”

  While Charlie takes the piece of paper from Vicky and writes the message down, the circle around what was once the doll starts turning clockwise. The herbs and leaves swirl through the air with the speed of lightning. A couple of seconds later they go up in smoke. At the same time, the warriors jump to attention. They form an impenetrable wall between us and the demons that are slowly coming round the corner of the street. One by one, Jeep’s skeletons join the line of defense.

  Vicky reads Charlie’s note and beckons the others.

  I hand her back the mirrors and we retreat to the parking lot of the Winged Centaur.

  We move through the garden of the hotel next door and peek around the corner. The demons are filing into the street. There are so many of them and with every second that passes, I expect them to turn their amphibian heads and come for me. I haven’t forgotten the first time I was invisible. The ice demons somehow knew I was there.

  But the octopus-lizards keep moving forward, to where our two armies are waiting for them.

  “Let’s go,” Vicky suddenly says, and she breaks into a run, pulling me along.

  The others follow, Jeep and Taylar backwards, to keep an eye on the demons.

  We reach the police station within a minute. An old man covered in mud is yelling at the woman behind the desk and several policemen are coming to her aid, while others are watching the scene from a distance.

  Thanks to this distraction, we can slip through the door without anybody getting suspicious.

  “I’ll see if I can find Kale,” D’Maeo says before vanishing.

  He’s back in the blink of an eye and beckons us.

  We follow him quickly. Carefully avoiding people, we cross the room and sneak through a door at the back of the lobby. D’Maeo walks into the hallway on the left and takes out a set of keys.

  “Where did you get those?” I ask.

  Of course he doesn’t answer me.

  He opens the door to the fourth cell and lets us all in.

  Kale is sitting on a bed, frowning at the door that seems to open and close by itself. He looks even smaller than he did before and there are bags under his eyes.

  “Hello?” he says hesitantly.

  CHAPTER 35

  I scratch my head. “Now what? I can’t talk to him while I’m invisible.”

  Charlie points at my waist. “Write down what you want to say. One of your ghosts can show themselves and speak for you.”

  Kale scans his cell with narrowed eyes. “Hello?” he repeats.

  “What do we do?” Vicky asks.

  Jeep shrugs. “Show ourselves and tell him the truth I guess. We’ll have to take him with us.”

  I rip another page out of my Book of Spells. It would feel like a waste if the other page hadn’t reappeared. Looks like I have an unlimited amount of paper with me.

  When I hand the empty page to Vicky, she takes out the pen again and waits for me to write something down.

  “Hello?” Kale’s unease is growing. “Is anyone there?”

  I write as fast as I can and hand the page back to Vicky. She scans it and gives it to D’Maeo.

  When the old ghost becomes visible, Kale presses himself against the wall of his cell. “Who are you?”

  D’Maeo shoots him his fatherly smile and reads my message to him. “Don’t be afraid. I am D’Maeo, a ghost in service of a Mage called Dante. You are in danger because of what you did. We are here to protect you.”

  The boxer shakes his head, as if trying to get rid of a hallucination. When D’Maeo doesn’t disappear, he sits up straighter. “What do you mean, what I did?”

  D’Maeo hands me back the piece of paper and I write down my answer. “You shouldn’t have punched Craig Archer.”

  He throws up his hands. “I didn’t! He broke his own nose when I threatened to expose his foul play.”

  The old ghost rubs his beard. “You mean you didn’t hit him?”

  “I was tempted, but no.” Kale balls his hands into fists. “Not yet. But now that I’m charged with assault, no one will believe me.”

  D’Maeo needs no further instructions. “Okay, listen.” He places his hands gently on Kale’s shoulders and looks him in the eye. “You are safe as long as you don’t harm him. But Craig is making you mad on purpose. You cannot let your anger get the best of you.”

  When his expression doesn’t change, I search for something that’ll make him listen. I scribble it down on another page and hand it to D’Maeo.

  “We might be able to prove your innocence,” he reads. “So don’t throw away your whole career in an attempt to get back at this loser.”

  Kale blinks. “You can prove I didn’t break his nose?”

  For a second I hesitate. But I know I should tell him the truth. So I write, I can’t promise you we’ll succeed, but we’ll try.

  His eyes search D’Maeo’s face when he reads it and then sweep the room. “Why?”

  “Because you’re important,” the old ghost answers with a smile.

  That seems to appeal more to him than anything we’ve said so far. He leans back and sticks up his thumb. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep my cool. I won’t let Craig get what he wants.”

  I narrow my eyes. “We can’t rely on his temper. He has been chosen for a reason and they will keep coming at him until he breaks. We need to take out Craig.” I scribble my last comment on another page.

  D’Maeo nods as he reads it. He holds out his hand to Kale, who shakes it. “Goodbye for now. We’ll do what we can to get you out of here.”

  As D’Maeo makes himself invisible again, Jeep twirls his hat in his hand. “There’s one thing I don’t und
erstand. If he hasn’t committed the sin yet, why are there already so many demons?”

  I walk to the barred window that is placed high up in the wall and look into the street. “I know why.”

  Craig the crab man parks his car at the back of the police station. With a gleeful expression on his face, he gets out and walks around the building, to the entrance.

  I turn to the Shield and write them another message. Craig’s coming. Do whatever you can to stop him.

  Jeep blinks as D’Maeo reads it out loud. “Why? Kale isn’t going to attack him, he just told us.”

  He doesn’t want to right now, because now he can still think clearly.

  Taylar mimics Jeep’s confused look. “What does that mean?”

  Didn’t you find it strange that a good, calm guy like Kale suddenly erupted into violence? I write. Haven’t you noticed that his anger only seems to flare up after seeing Craig?

  Jeep snorts. “I’d get angry if someone like that pushed my buttons.”

  Taylar blows a stray blond lock out of his eye. “Yeah, I don’t blame him either.”

  Sure, but it takes a pretty severe outburst of violence to be condemned to Hell. So…

  Vicky takes out her sword. Her eyes dart through the room as she listens for anything going on in the lobby. “Get to the point, Dante. Time’s almost up.”

  What I’m trying to say, is that I think Craig has some kind of hypnotic power. Probably something similar to Vicky’s.

  That makes Vicky tilt her pretty head. “You could be right. Be careful when you approach him.”

  I start scribbling again and hand my note to Vicky. Can you hypnotize him while you’re invisible?

  She shrugs. “I can try.”

  She takes up position in front of the cell door while we step aside.

  “Be careful,” I say, even though she can’t hear me.

  We don’t have to wait long. After about a minute, Craig’s voice reaches us through the closed door. “I just want to speak to him! To tell him I forgive him.”

  “Unbelievable,” Kale mumbles. “The guts that guy has.” His jaw is clenched and his eyes burn with rage.

  As one of the police officers answers, Kale closes his eyes and takes steady breaths. “Just ignore him. He‘s not worth it.”