by John Conroe
She stopped talking and watched me as I processed everything she had said. It was all true; I could feel that. Virtually every word. I was glad I was sitting because I may have keeled over otherwise. I knew she liked me, or at least thought she did, but my view of the attack that changed her was so drastically different that it never occurred to me that she would or could see me in such a virtuous role.
“Stacia, I’m not what you think. I’m not the white knight—in fact, I’m more like the black knight. You don’t know what I carry inside me, what I fight to contain. It might look like I’m a good guy, but I’m really not.”
She snorted. “You’re kind of a stupid ass is what you are. You think I don’t know all about Grim, the demon blood, the fact that demons want to use anyone near and dear to you?”
She smiled at me like I was transparent, like I was ill equipped to battle her in a conversation about feelings and relationships. I had the sinking feeling I was completely out of my league.
“You don’t understand,” I said.
She immediately leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “What? That your dark side, Grim, is instant death in every direction? I watched your one and only cage fight, remember? Which was done for me to have a choice, if I recall. I heard, in great detail, about the battle under Atlantic Avenue, where you saved the leaders of the Pack and the Coven. I heard you laugh as you pounded the werewolf that bit me into paste. I was there last night on the stairs when you were getting your butt beat by little demon girls. Little demon girls you could have chopped to pieces in a split second, but instead risked your own life to save, one at a time. I know about you, Christian Gordon. I know the good and the bad!” she said, standing up. “I may not like your vampire, but I have to agree with her taste in men. Hey, see what I did there? Taste in men!”
She pulled out her own phone while I sat speechless.
“Hey, Mitzi, it’s me!”
“ Ah, Lady Lupus. What’s up, girl?” a female voice said.
“Gotta shop question for you. Let’s say a girl of your skills gets a hair off a guy and plants a love-type compulsion on him. How could he get rid of it?”
“You talking about your hottie? You want I should whammy him for you or did some bitchy-witch get his hair? Where is he? You following him?”
“No, he’s right here. We think this little blonde bitch has a line into him, if you follow, but it’s not real strong because he’s transferred it a bit to me. Mixing up blondes, so to speak.”
“Stace, if I had a hair from your boy, I’d own him! There wouldn’t be any transference. She must not know what she’s doing.”
Stacia glanced at me, and I shook my head. My feeling was that the Boklund witches were highly skilled.
“No, we think she’s in your league, Mitz.”
“First of all, no one is in my league. Second, granting that she has a modicum of skill, your boy toy must be resistant. Otherwise he’d beeline for her or, if there had been transference, you’d be too preoccupied to talk, if you know what I mean. Screaming his name most likely.”
Stacia quirked her eyebrows and pursed her lips, making it obvious she was running a mental image that she liked through her head. I was, too.
“So what can he do to break it?”
“It’s called Sympathetic magic. Using part of a person to link a spell. It creates a path from the witch to the, er, victim. Paths run both ways. If it were me, I’d send a little something-something back along the psychic phone line.”
“A counter spell?”
“In my case, yes. A nasty beat-your-ass kind of spell for attacking me in the first place. But if Mr. Hottie has half the abilities you seem to think he does, a little burst of power sent back might just destroy the hair or fingernail that she’s working with. He needs to concentrate on a strand of his own hair, then push some Power back along the link. I could show him, but I’m not there. Plus, I’ve seen his photos, remember? You don’t want me getting ahold his hair or I might be the one screaming his name!”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t trust you within a hundred feet of him,” Stacia said, giving me a wink. “Thanks, Mitzi!” Stacia covered the phone and pointed at the safe with the book, giving me a raised eyebrow look. I shook my head. Asking yet another witch about the book seemed like a really bad idea. Someone was already after it and it wasn’t twenty-four hours out of the Pack house.
“My pleasure, Bitch!”
“Back at ya, Witch!”
She hung up. I looked at her with raised eyebrows.
“She’s a handful, but we get along.”
“So that was a joke, the part about her with my hair?” I asked.
“No, she’d chain you to her bed in a New York second. I’d have to kill her,” she said with a shrug, patting 'Sos on the head as she sat back down. She meant it—the whole thing. Her so-called friend would try to enslave me, and Stacia would kill her. The Vermont girl had a whole new edge to her that I hadn’t really seen before. She was, after all, a werewolf now. Werewolves kill things; it’s in their nature.
“The book is going to be a big problem, isn’t it?” she asked.
“I suspect so. Information is power. Apparently, someone already wants it bad enough to try and rough you up for it.”
“Yeah, thanks for the help by the way,” she said.
My turn to snort. “You were about to rip their arms off in full view of the public. You didn’t need my help.”
“But you would have helped if I’d needed it?” she asked.
I frowned at the memory. “I had all I could do to stop Grim. Two humans watching and all. But if it’s any consolation, he ran at least ten options by me. His favorite was pretty bloody.”
She smiled a self-satisfied smile. “Nice to know you got my back,” she said, turning and giving me a view of said back.
“Stop that! It’s not helpful,” I said.
“You know? You’re right. Taunting you while you’re under a spell, or as close as you get to being under a spell, isn’t fair. I’ll stop,” she said, serious. “So why don’t you see about busting it because I find that I like taunting you?”
I went into the bathroom and pulled a hair from my brush. Easier than pulling a hair from my almost-brush-cut head.
Eyes closed, breathing deep and even, thoughts focused on my center, the spot two inches or so below my navel. Picturing a swirling sphere of violet energy pulsing with power, I opened my eyes and stared at the strand of hair. I pushed energy out of my stomach and through my right hand, which was holding the hair, into the black line of witchy cobweb leading off to the northeast. The hair in my hand vanished in a puff of smoke just as several loud pops came from the bathroom and the pillow on my bed. Stacia jumped up and rushed into the bathroom, coming back out immediately with a smoldering plastic mess that moments before had been my brush. She dumped it in the empty waste can by the desk and looked at me, eyebrows raised.
“It’s gone,” I said after looking with my Sight. The spiderweb from hell had vanished. My phone buzzed on the bed. Caller ID was for Copper Top Cabins.
“Hello?”
“Your book’s title is ‘das Buch der dunkelsten Trauer,‘ which is German for The Book of Darkest Sorrow,“ Quinby said.
“What do you mean?“
“It’s a witch’s grimoire. It was written in the sixteen hundreds by a woman named Roswitha Maier. She was very powerful and particularly skilled at the darker, deadlier spells.”
“Is it valuable?”
“Incalculably! This lady was a monster; she virtually ruled a section of the Black Forest unchallenged. Hitler spent enormous resources trying to find that book. It was in a house in North Carolina?”
“Walled up in concrete. Can witches track this thing? We’ve already been attacked once over it.”
“Grimoires take on part of their author’s power and personality. That one is probably like a beacon in the night for every witch in the area. Thick concrete would likely block its signal. How are you storing it?�
�
“Wrapped in silk in a cheap firesafe.”
“The silk is good, but you need lots of it, and it should be in a Rowan wood box. The safe is useless. Rowan wood is protective and, combined with the silk, should help hide it. But you should know that as long as you have it, you’ll be targeted.”
“How do I destroy it?”
She hesitated, and I could tell she didn’t want to tell me. “Why destroy it?”
“Because it ripped a portal to Hell in some little girls’ room."
“It will resist destruction. But saltwater will weaken and eventually destroy the wards that protect it. If you were near an ocean, then submerging it in saltwater, in, say, a plastic bag, would completely hide it as well. But Mr. Gordon, I think you should reconsider destroying it. The information it contains is priceless.”
“Mrs. Boklund, I spend my life hunting down and banishing demons. This book is a pocket primer for mass destruction, demon style.”
“Not to change the topic, but a corner of my daughter’s dresser just exploded a few minutes ago,” she said, her tone cautious.
“Oh, anyone hurt?” I asked, suddenly concerned.
“No, but Erika told me that she used some exceedingly poor judgment with you,” she said.
“I suspect it was a love spell type of thing,” I said.
“Mr. Gordon, my daughter is impulsive and passionate, but she meant you no harm. I’m so so sorry if this spell has caused you to travel unnecessarily.”
“She’s young and I guess I can’t hate her for liking me, but it’s pretty much the ultimate stalker move. But I didn’t do any unnecessary traveling; the spell wasn’t that strong.”
“Really? That bothers me more than anything else.”
“Huh?”
“My daughter is young and prone to not thinking things through, but she’s a gifted witch with considerable power. If the spell failed to have an effect, on you then you are extremely resistant to magic. That’s… troublesome. Are we okay, Mr. Gordon, or do we have a problem?”
“I consider your help invaluable, Mrs. Boklund. Glad everyone is okay. But please keep Erika from doing anything else like that,” I said. She agreed, and we hung up.
“How do you feel?” Stacia asked. “Any uncontrollable urges to ravish me?”
“I feel better. Back on track,” I answered.
“You didn’t answer my second question,” she noted.
“Come on, let’s go to church,” I said, heading for the door. Behind me, she laughed softly to herself. I didn’t tell her that the image in my head was of a certain black-haired, blue-eyed girl, who I hadn’t thought of properly in days.
Chapter 10
A mile from the hotel, we came across an Episcopal church, made from dark red stone and with a bell tower. In other words, it looked like a church should. There’s a whole slew of new churches out there that meet in converted retail spaces or other commercial buildings. They would work fine for my purposes, but I have a hard time meeting my handler from Heaven in anything but a traditional church. Go figure—me, the anti-church guy, and I’m stuck with conventional values.
The sanctuary was open, so we entered quietly and I grabbed a pew near the back.
“I’m sorry, but the church is closed,” a voice said from the front left of the room. A middle-aged man with a white collar started to approach us, a frown on his face as he gazed at the giant wolf sitting by my side.
Another man appeared silently by his side, taller and younger looking. This one spoke softly into the priest’s ear and, despite my super hearing, I couldn’t hear a word he said. The priest didn’t acknowledge the newcomer, but he suddenly stopped his approach and smiled at us.
“On second thought, we are, after all, God’s house, and all are welcome. Please take your time. Just be sure to close the door when you leave.”
With that, he turned and left the way he came. The young man by his side continued to approach us. Tall, athletic, with tightly curled blonde hair, he had fashion model looks. He was wearing dark jeans and a dark Skillet tee shirt that had a gruesome monster exploding out of his torso. The words I feel like a Monster were printed right over the graphic image. Awasos watched him, but Stacia didn’t appear to be able to see him.
“It’s gonna get weird in a second. You’ll think I’ve gone off the deep end and started carrying on conversations with myself. But that’s not what’s happening,” I tried to explain to her.
“I know. You’re gonna talk to your Angel, right?”
“How did you know about that?”
“I already told you. I know all about you,” she said softly. She settled back in the pew and pulled out her smartphone to check emails.
“Hi Barbiel,” I said.
My personal contact among the Heavenly Host smiled and patted Awasos before sitting in the pew in front of us. He swiveled around, putting one leg on the pew in order to face me.
“I’m concerned that L… Tatiana is not here. I haven’t met this companion before, but I fear she is a potential… divergence.”
“This is Stacia. She’s helping me with the local wolf pack,” I said, ignoring his comment.
“Yes, and now I see how she fits into things. You continue to draw in those you will need. But this one is also a temptation.” He shuddered. “Choice—it seems like such a simple thing, but it literally defines the human ordeal.”
“Are you saying that you have no ability to choose?” I asked.
“No, of course I have the ability to make choices, but Angels don’t have Free Will. I will never be tempted to deviate from my mission. My choices are all about how to achieve my goals, but I cannot choose to ignore the mission. You—humans—all have Free Will. You are supposed to be with Tatiana, but this Stacia tempts you. You are attracted to her and if you choose her, it could change everything.” He tilted his head and regarded us for a moment, then smiled. “But you haven’t gone down that path—yet.”
“Soo, let’s get back to the reason I’m here,” I said, troubled by his words.
“Yes, the Gateway. You wish to know how to close it,” he stated. I must have looked shocked because he chuckled. “We keep pretty close tabs on you. I’m not the only one assigned to this case anymore. But –" he held up one finger and looked serious, “ I am still the lead!”
“Barbiel, these conversations always leave me scratching my head for days. Since you know why I’m here, can you help?” I asked.
He nodded, a pleased smile on his face. Reaching into the pocket of his jeans, he pulled out a folded piece of paper. He held it up and started to open it. He continued to unfold, and unfold, and unfold, till the paper was three feet long. Densely written words in flowing script filled the entire front and back. He fluttered it in my face. “These are the instructions for closing a Hell gate… if you were a witch!”
He dropped it, and it disappeared six inches from the ground. Reaching back into his pocket, he pulled out a three-by-five-inch note card. There appeared to be four short sentences written on it.
“These are the instructions if you happen to be you,” he said, handing it to me.
The card said:
Focus your aura,
Envision a net closing,
Push power to the outside edges of the opening,
Pull it shut like the drawstrings of a pouch.
I looked back up at him. “You’ve developed a twisted form of humor that is… unexpected.”
“I copied yours. My Brothers don’t understand humor, but I find I like it.”
I studied him for a moment. Every meeting with him turned out in unpredictable ways.
“This is it? It’s too easy,” I said, shaking the card.
He shook his head. “It will be extraordinarily difficult. The power that opened the Gate was harnessed over years and years of dark rituals conducted in that house. The power built over the years as the house had subsequent owners. It drew energy from each owner and every person in their household like a vampire draws
blood. Closing this portal will take more power than you have in yourself, Christian. You will need to use an additional source.”
“What could I possibly use for that?” I asked.
He leaned forward and tapped the God Tear hanging around my neck. Most people didn’t notice it, but of course, he was an Angel. Plus, he sorta made it.
“You will use this. A significant portion of it, maybe all of it.”
“How do I do that?” I asked.
He tapped my head with the same finger that had just touched the Tear. I felt a small pulse in my head at his touch.
