The Warlock's Curse

by Hobson, M. K.

  “How did you find me?” Will finally asked. When Ben did not answer immediately, Will instead asked what he’d wanted to in the first place: “Why couldn’t you have found me sooner?”

  “You were supposed to meet me at the train station,” Ben said. “You never showed up. I spent days looking for you. Some people had said they’d seen you with a man named Harley Briar, and they told me that he often came here.” He paused. “Look at the letter.”

  Will remembered Ben’s letter, still crumpled in his jacket pocket. He took it out and smoothed it, and saw that it did bear a message, written in a desperate hand.

  Where are you, Will? Why can’t I reach you? Why didn’t you meet me at the station?

  There was more written on the letter than just that—instructions for where he should go, pleas to come as quickly as possible, comforting reassurances—but they were all useless to him now. Exhaling, Will carefully folded the letter and put it back in his pocket.

  “I blacked out, Ben,” Will said softly. “I woke up five days later, in a hotel. And Jenny was there. In the room with me. She thought I’d locked the door, but I hadn’t. She had blood on her. And ... cuts. Something happened, Ben. Something bad.”

  Ben drew a deep breath, but said nothing.

  “I don’t understand what happened to me,” Will said. “Do you, Ben? Do you know?”

  Ben stopped for a moment, plate in hand. He laid it down, straightened it.

  “I think I do,” he said softly. He looked at Will, and Will suddenly noticed that his brother’s eyes were very green.

  “You remember, in one of the letters I sent you? I said that to explain things, I kept having to go back farther? Well, to explain this, I have to go very far back.” He paused. “I have to go back to 1690, to one of our ancestors. A man named Anson Kendall. He was a witch hunter, and one of the warlocks he hunted was named Aebedel Cowdray.”

  The very name sent shivers up Will’s spine. He knew that name, he’d heard it spoken in his nightmares a million times. But never in plain English, only in the language the voice spoke to him in.

  “Anson Kendall crushed a warlock named Aebedel Cowdray to death beneath seven stones. And with his dying breath, Aebedel Cowdray cursed Anson Kendall and his descendants for all eternity. It’s a moon-curse. It reveals itself only after the victim’s eighteenth birthday. The curse becomes more powerful as the moon waxes, gaining its full strength when the moon is full. And as the moon wanes, so does the power of the curse.”

  Will remembered another moon-curse ... the one that had afflicted the farmboy in the story Jenny had read to him. He blinked, thinking through it ... in fact, it was all the same! Moon-curse, vengeful warlock ...

  “Ben ... that’s a goddamn story,” Will hissed. “The Warlock’s Curse.”

  “There certainly are similarities,” Ben allowed, but said nothing more.

  “That was the book you told me to use to unlock the letter.” Will narrowed his eyes, taking a step toward his brother. “Why did you choose that book, Ben? Did you know? Did you know this would happen to me?”

  “No,” Ben said firmly. “I knew about the curse, yes. And I knew that all of us—all of the brothers—could have potentially inherited it ... except that Father gave us all the Panchrest. And the Panchrest should have made it impossible.” He paused. “You shouldn’t have inherited the curse, Will. It wasn’t supposed to happen. But somehow it did.”

  “The Agency warlock ... Bernays ... he said that I hadn’t had the Panchrest. That his boss had told him I hadn’t.”

  This comment gave Ben pause—but then he shook his head dismissively. “Well, his boss wasn’t there. I was. I saw Father give it to you.”

  “Did he know?” Will said. “Father? About the curse?”

  “Of course Father knew,” Ben said, trying—and failing—to keep bitterness from his voice. “Father knows everything.”

  “So Father didn’t give us boys the Panchrest to protect us from the Black Flu at all,” Will spat. “He gave it to us to prevent us from getting the curse. Which is a far better reason than you gave me. Why did you leave that part out of your letter?”

  “Because I didn’t know the truth until later,” Ben said. “And even when I did know, I still couldn’t forgive him.”

  “So you decided to let me believe the worst as well?”

  “I wanted to tell you in person.” Ben raked a hand through his hair. “I couldn’t ... Will, I couldn’t tell you everything. Even on the Sophos’ stationery, it was too dangerous.”

  Ben fell abruptly silent as Dr. Gore entered the dining room, carrying two small glass dishes filled with glossy black olives. Will began eating them in greedy handfuls as soon as Dr. Gore placed them on the table, swallowing them pits and all. Dr. Gore slapped his hand away.

  “Irene will be home soon,” he said. Then he murmured to Ben, “Is everything all right? Have you told him?”

  Ben nodded. “I’ve told him. He understands now.”

  But Will didn’t understand anything. He looked between his brother and Dr. Gore, and in the long moment of silence, he heard singing.

  The sound came from the street outside. Women’s voices, sweet and solemn, singing a holy song in Greek. The front door opened and closed, and the sound of song faded as the women continued on down the street.

  Irene came into the dining room, dressed head to toe in sober black, head covered by a scarf.

  “Kala Christouyenna, daughter.” Dr. Gore pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Did you ask a blessing of the Reverend Father for me?”

  Irene nodded, glancing at Ben and Will but then looking quickly away.

  “Has Harley woken up?” Her voice was soft and anxious as she laid aside her scarf and smoothed her shining black hair.

  “Briefly,” Dr. Gore said, and Irene said nothing more as she hurried off to check on him.

  “Here’s what I do understand,” said Will, picking up the thread of their conversation once more. “I’ve inherited a family curse. And there are warlocks after me. Agency assassins, wearing red orchids. They were waiting for me in my apartment.”

  “You’ve mentioned the Agency twice now, which means you’ve read The Goês’ Confession,” Ben murmured. He looked at Dr. Gore, then at Will. “I would advise you not to go around telling people that.”

  “I didn’t read it. My friend told me about it. He said that the warlocks who wear red orchids are from the Agency. And that they kill Old Users to abide by the terms of the Settlement. So why would they be interested in me?”

  “The powerful possession you suffered would have created an intense magical beacon,” Ben said. “They are trained to watch for such high levels of magical activity.”

  “They will be even more interested in you now,” Dr. Gore added grimly. “Harley said you were able to banish an entire Trine of Agency warlocks. That would have taken a hundred times more magical force than Harley himself expended. You should be in much worse shape than him—in fact, you should be dead. But, besides being hungry enough to eat all of our kourambiedes, you aren’t showing the slightest sign of damage.”

  Will absorbed all this information silently. That’s what Bernays had said. That he should be dead.

  “But Bernays wasn’t old.” Will knit his brow. “His men weren’t any older. They were all of my generation—Malmantic. But all of them did as much magic as Harley.” Nausea rose in him as he recalled what Bernays had done to Mrs. Kosanovic. “More, even.”

  “They’re credomancers,” Dr. Gore said, with a dismissive shrug. Ben shot him a warning glance, and the old man fell abruptly silent.

  Will narrowed his eyes. “If they’re credomancers, then you must know who they are. The Sophos of the Stanton Institute must know, at least—”

  “There are many kinds of credomancers, Will, just as there are many kinds of churches,” Ben interjected. “They all have their own unique power structures. The Stanton Institute trains credomancers, but we don’t own them, any more than Tesla I
ndustries owns you.” He paused. “No, the Agency is something different. It recruits credomancers because they are the least restricted in their use of magical power.”

  “Why would that be?”

  “Credomancy uses the least amount of free magic of all the great traditions,” Dr. Gore said, straightening a knife alongside a plate. “In fact, the credomancer himself channels very little magic. He draws his power through the bodies of those who believe in him.”

  “So every time Dreadnought Stanton uses magic, he doesn’t suffer for it ... rather, the people who believe in him do?”

  “Something like that,” Ben said.

  Will’s head spun. Trying to make sense of it, he thought through the events of the night before, forcing himself remembering every terrible detail. When he came to the part where Bernays had shown him the little purple velvet box, alarm seized him.

  “What if they’re looking for Jenny?” He suddenly realized he didn’t know where she was ... Where could she have gone?

  YOU KNOW WHERE SHE WENT.

  Will winced visibly, hands going to his head. Dr. Gore laid a steadying hand on his shoulder.

  “Natural after-effects,” he murmured. “Your body is accustoming itself to the new presence that has invaded it. Aebedel Cowdray does not control your body at the moment, as the moon is on the wane. But he may still bleed through when you are tired, or weak, or under great stress.”

  Will sank heavily into a chair.

  “They have no reason to look for her,” Ben said. “She’s not who they want. And as for where she’s gone—”

  “No,” Will said. “I know where she went. At least I think I do.” He felt spent and tired and hopeless.

  Dr. Gore looked at Ben. “Would you please go find Irene and tell her that it is time for supper?”

  Ben hesitated for a moment, but then nodded and left the dining room. Pulling out a chair, Dr. Gore sat next to Will, looking into his face.

  “It is a very terrible thing that has happened to you, Will,” he said. “And I understand, more than you know. The Agency found me too, many years ago. I am an Old User—or at least, I was.”

  Will stared at him.

  “They found me in the winter of 1894,” Dr. Gore continued in a soft contemplative voice. “My dear wife had been very sick, and finally she died—but not until after I had used too much magic trying to save her life. The Agency assassins tracked me down.” He paused, remembering. “They gave me a choice. I could either take the Panchrest—stripping me of my ability to work magic at all—or they would kill me. The leader of the Trine who found me held out the Panchrest in one hand, and a silver knife in the other. I chose the Panchrest and was glad of it.”

  “Glad of it?” Will echoed.

  “Yes, glad of it,” Dr. Gore said. “It was not a choice they offered Old Users before the Panchrest was developed. If they had found me just a few years earlier, they would have killed me in secrecy and silence, a knife in the dark, a silver bullet through the heart.” He paused. “My daughter was very young and her mother had just died. There was no one else to care for her. So yes, I was glad that they gave me the chance to live, even if it meant I could no longer work magic.”

  Will shook his head slowly, trying to understand.

  “But if you took the Panchrest, how are you still able to work magic?” He looked at Dr. Gore. “You healed that man from the factory. You sheltered me when I came here. How?”

  Dr. Gore clenched his jaw and did not answer. Will suddenly noticed that Ben had returned from speaking to Irene, and was standing in the doorway of the dining room.

  “He needs to know everything,” Ben said. “He can be trusted.”

  “Perhaps he can,” Dr. Gore said. “But what about Cowdray?”

  Ben dismissed the older man’s reluctance with an impatient

  gesture. “There is a way around the restriction, Will. It’s a technique known as ‘vamping.’”

  “The flow of magic through the human body can never be entirely blocked. Some magical conductivity must be retained to sustain life,”

  Dr. Gore continued resignedly. “This small amount of residual conductivity can be used to make a low-level magical connection with another person. In this way, someone who has taken the Panchrest can ‘vamp’ upon the body of another—direct the flow of power through the magical channels of that person’s body.”

  “You use Irene’s Body” Will said, suddenly remembering how Dr. Gore always held hands with his daughter while he did magic, how it was always she who held the alembic.

  “It is a very dangerous practice,” Dr. Gore said gravely. “Irene and I have worked together for many years, and I know her limits as well as is possible. But even so, the slightest miscalculation could result in Exunge building up in her body to levels from which she could not recover.” He paused. “And of course, if such a miscalculation were ever to occur, I would be powerless to bring her back.”

  “That’s why the warlocks from the Agency don’t care too much about it,” Ben added. “Because the one vamped-upon so frequently dies. The practice is self-limiting.”

  “But it explains how Cowdray can control my body the way he does,” Will whispered, looking at Ben. “He’s ... vamping on me.”

  Ben inclined his head. “The magical mechanism of a curse is fundamentally similar to vamping,” he said. “But if the Panchrest was given to you—as I saw Father do—then it should not be possible for Cowdray to work so much magic through your Body as most of the magical channels of your body would have been fused in infancy.” Ben paused. “On the other hand, if you were somehow not given the Panchrest, as the Agency warlocks have said, then you should be dead from the amount of magic you worked.” He sighed. “Neither explanation fits, little brother.”

  Will’s eyes searched the worn carpet. Ben was right. But then he realized that he didn’t care about explanations—explanations weren’t solutions. He sat back in the chair, rubbing his face vigorously before letting his hands drop with a sound of anguish.

  “So what am I supposed to do?” he finally said. “How do I get rid of him?”

  Dr. Gore said nothing. And Ben could not meet his eyes.

  “I don’t know, Will,” Ben said. “I’m sorry.”

  Will stared at his brother for a long time.

  “What about Dreadnought Stanton? Your Sophos?” Will remembered Jenny’s dramatic reading of The Warlock’s Curse. “The Dreadnought Stanton books are supposed to be true life tales. He saved that farmboy, the one who was cursed. He banished the spirit that possessed him. Could he save me?”

  “Nothing is impossible,” Ben said. But there was no encouragement in the words.

  “There is one thing I do know,” Dr. Gore said regretfully, “and that is we cannot shield you here forever, Will. You must leave here very soon. And you must go far away.”

  Will looked from Ben to Dr. Gore.

  “Whatever the reason—however it has happened—you are

  nothing less than an Old User in a young man’s body. And the Agency has targeted you as such.” He paused. “There are avenues open for those who have attracted the Agency’s attention in this way. I can put you in contact with people who can help you escape the country. They will send you up through Canada, and then across the Atlantic. There are places in Europe where Old Users can live in safety. Belgium, I hear, is very pleasant.”

  Will looked at him incredulously. “Belgium?”

  “There are places even the Agency cannot reach,” Ben mused.

  “I’m not going to Belgium,” Will snapped. “I’m not leaving America. I have to find Jenny. I have to tell her—”

  “She won’t want to see you.” Ben cut him off. “And even if you do think you know where she is, you’ll only put her in more danger. Stop thinking like a kid. You can’t afford it anymore.”

  Will curled back in his chair, stung. A deep feeling of bitterness rose in him. Goddamn Cowdray. Goddamn the filthy cruel thing that now lived inside him.r />
  At that moment, Irene came into the dining room, and Briar was with her. He limped at her side, leaning heavily on her, and between his broken nose and the puffy bruises on his face—I gave him those, Will thought miserably—and the deep inky smudges on his skin he didn’t look like he should be able to walk at all. But he was, and he was even dressed nicely in the secondhand suit Will had seen him in before. When he saw Will he smiled crookedly.

  “Hey Will,” he said, his voice soft and weak, as if he had been screaming. “Kala Christouyenna. That’s ‘Merry Christmas’ in Greek, in case they ain’t told you.”

  Will stood quickly, letting Irene guide Briar to the chair he’d been slumped in. Irene hovered over him for a moment before Briar gently pushed her away.

  “C’mon, stop fussing,” he said. “That food smells good enough to kick the guts out of a badger. Let’s eat, huh?”

  Irene hurried into the kitchen, followed by her father, and as steaming platters were being carried in and laid on the table, Will crouched beside Briar and spoke quietly.

  “How are you?”

  Briar chuckled grimly. “That thing in you has got some fight in it,” he said. “I ain’t had the stuffing knocked out of me like that since the McKees Rocks Strike in Philadelphia. And even then it took six Cossacks on horseback with billy clubs.” He shifted in the chair, groaning. “But I’ll be all right. I told you, I’m tougher than I look.”

  “Thank you for helping me,” Will said. He was silent for a moment before adding, “I didn’t know you were a sangrimancer.”

  “I kind of guess I wasn’t much help at all, really,” Briar said. “And sure I’m a sangrimancer. I ain’t ashamed of it. Why do you think I took to organizing the magical factories as my specialty?” He paused. “They’re my people, Will. Your people too now, I reckon. Seeing as this makes you kind of a warlock, just like the rest of us.”

  Will clenched his teeth. “No offense, but I’m not a warlock and I’m not going to be. I’m going to get rid of this thing somehow.”

  “My gran’dad once told me a story about a cursed man,” Briar shrugged. “The curse was like yours; some kind of family feud,