As I walk in the door, Houston is on the sofa playing a video game. “I thought you were going to look into the emails?” I ask.
“I am,” he says. I look at the TV and see his character engaged in light saber combat.
“Your idea of research is playing a video game?”
“Someone sent a message. And it looks silly to you, but whoever sent the message thinks it should mean something to me. Maybe that is the point. They sent the message in a way that only I would be able to figure out. So that’s what I am doing.”
“Okay, well, let me know if…you win. Or whatever.”
Just as I am settling in to go to sleep, Houston knocks on my bedroom door. Before I can even open my mouth to complain, he blurts out, “It’s not Nihilus. It’s Traya!”
“Okay,” I yawn. “If you say so.”
“No, no, no. Listen. Darth Nihilus was a wound in the Force. A…a…Force vampire. The only way for him to overcome his hunger was to drain the Force from others. Kinda like the Haeromancers learned how to do.”
“Houston, if you are about to tell me we’re looking for Sith—”
“I’m not kidding this time, Nancy. Let me finish. Whoever sent the link was sending a message. We need to look deeper at this. We’ve been looking for Necromancers who found the forbidden magic hidden at the Nexus and just started to use it. But we shouldn’t be looking for the students. We should be looking for the teacher.”
“It’s almost midnight. I am not awake enough to follow you.”
“Nihilus had a teacher, Darth Traya. She had been a Jedi who was banished from the order for stuff you don’t care about right now. She taught him how to control his hunger and how to feed. Long story short, because I know you don’t care, Traya was betrayed by Nihilus and believed dead. But she had just gone into hiding, bidding her time. She was the Lord of Betrayal, betrayed by both the Jedi and the Sith. And she went into hiding to come back later for revenge.”
“What a minute. Are you thinking that Chana Magus is still alive after all of these centuries? That’s impossible. Someone would have sensed her.”
“Who? The same people who thought my mother had ascended and didn’t know where to look for her?”
Sometime around 1760, Haemomancer Chana Magus discovered the first official case of a psychic vampire, a vampire that fed off of psychic energy instead of blood. She kidnapped and tortured the vampire to perfect her research on how to siphon the life energies of other creatures for sustenance. At first, the results were amazing. Haemonancers were able to “consume” the excess life energy produced by all living things to sustain themselves. But as all miracle cures go, things went south quickly. Over time, it took more and more energy to get the same result. Eventually, the Haermonancers resorting to killing people outright. This resulted in the Fifth authorizing a purging of the entire school.
“If Chana Magus survived the purging and went into hiding, why now?”
“You’re the Rank Two Demonologist. If you were an angry Magus who has spent centuries plotting your revenge, what would bring you out now?”
“The Veil. It’s been thinning ever since the 13th Baktun ended.”
“If she’s been hiding in, say, the astral plane all of this time—”
“—Because even if they did destroy her physical body, she would have been strong enough to survive.”
“Particularly if she was maybe feeding off of weaker spirits in the process.”
“And now the Veil is thin enough for her to come through completely.” I go grab my phone and start dialing Steve.
“Wait a minute! Don’t call Steve yet!”
“Why not?”
“We still don’t know who sent the link, or why they sent it to us.”
“Archmage House found Esteemed residue on my computer. It had to be one of the Nine or one of their advocates.”
“The Nine wouldn’t have a reason to use cloak and dagger methods to communicate with us. Though it is kinda cool to think of one of them trolling around on Star Wars fan sites!”
“Nobody else can control the Esteemed.”
“Maybe it was acting on its own?”
“Why would one of the Esteemed do that?”
“Why do they do anything they do? But that is sort of the point. Someone sent that very specific link to us, knowing we would piece it together. But they have a reason for not going to the full Council yet.”
“I trust Steve.”
“But do you trust the people he would tell?”
I sit on the edge of my bed. “Okay, so an Esteemed, either under orders from someone or on its own volition, sent us the link warning us that Chana Magus may still be alive…or….well…at least still around. It also explains why the entity you encountered the other day seemed ghostly. It wasn’t a Necromancer astrally projecting. It was someone in an astral form. But it doesn’t explain why she didn’t kill you. Assuming this is about more than feeding, but about…revenge, why didn’t she kill you when she had the chance?”
“My exceptional good looks?”
“I was thinking your humility.”
“Could be that,” he smirks. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m too high profile of a target?”
“She’s killed Justicars. They are high profile targets! You’re...more the equivalent of a Kardashian.”
“That was just cruel,” says Houston as he folds his arms and leans in the doorway. “But the thing is that nobody knows who the Justicars are. And the Council kept the Justicar deaths secret. So regardless of how powerful they are by reputation, most people don’t know they are gone. People know who I am because of my mom.”
“That’s it! Your mom! If I’m Chana Magus, the last thing I want to do is tangle with Grande Madame Vivika in the astral plane. Your mother’s ability to interact with the physical world is just as limited as most of the dead, but in the astral plane your mother is still a powerhouse. She may have realized who you were and decided to save that fight for another day.”
“And considering it was one of the Nine that killed my mom, maybe she sees my mom as a potential ally. Traya went looking for Nihilus to help her destroy the Jedi, after all.”
“If I was her, I would be looking for powerful allies with a grudge.”
“We need to talk to my mom.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
September 22,
“I had the biggest crush on Alex Guinness as a girl,” says Nanna. “Such a shame you kids these days only know him from Star Wars. A marvelous actor.”
“I liked that boy who played Kenobi in the new ones,” says Mom. “Honey, what was his name?”
“Ewan McGregor, Mom.”
“I think he did a good job, considering what he had to work with.”
“Well, perhaps we should have scheduled a Star Wars movie marathon,” says Vivika as she shakes her head.
Mom, please?” says Houston. Vivika sighs dramatically. Mom rolls her eyes.
It took most of the day for Houston, Eric, and I to finish the summoning circle and get all three of them in one place. The ritual itself was simple enough. The problem is that with everything that has transpired over the last few months, Mom and Nanna really don’t like Vivika very much, and Vivika doesn’t like them. So while all three of them are more than happy to offer help, they just don’t like being in the same room to do it. Which means most of our time was spent coaxing, cajoling, and whining for them all to cooperate.
By the time we got the three of them to settle in and agree to work together, I was exhausted. And that was before Houston explained his theory involving Chana Magus and fictional Sith Lords.
“I have not sensed any significant power presences near the boundaries of the Veil since I have been watching over my son,” says Vivika. “With, of course, the exceptions of Madame Warlock and Madame Magus.”
“Things have been fairly quiet, considering how thin the Veil is,” says Nanna. “But then again, if she has been feeding off of lesser spirits that
would explain why things have been quiet. With an alpha predator in the area, the prey would stay away.”
“Are we sure the Archmage wasn’t detecting residual energies from when the Esteemed contacted you during the Inquest into my…Ascension?” asks Vivika.
“I asked the same question. He said the residue from an Esteemed only lasts for a few hours. And I did do a full sweep of my computer afterwards and reinstalled the anti-virus software.”
“And it was never on my phone, and we found residue there as well.”
“You ladies are sure you haven’t felt anything unusual?” asks Eric, who immediately makes an apologetic face for chiming in.
“Sweetie, we’re Warlocks,” says Mom. “I had a luncheon yesterday with an archdemon who wants me to accept a position as Overseer. Define unusual.”
“Was it Rudarvathrion?” asks Nanna. “I hope you told that fool no.”
“I told him I needed to help my daughter with her problems before making a decision.”
“You didn’t tell him no?”
“Mother, not in front of Nancy. We’ll discuss it later.”
“You know he ate his last Overseer, don’t you?”
“Charming,” says Vivika. “Young man, the truth is I have been completely focused on protecting my son from my murderer. And Nancy’s family has…been otherwise busy as well.”
“Has there been any word about the Lord Advocate?” asks Mom. I shake my head. “I don’t believe in coincidences, Nancy. That man disappearing has to be related somehow to all of this. The timing is too close.”
“Do you have a theory, Madame Warlock?” asks Vivika.
“Mother, explain to them what you found out about Medium Corella Dark.”
“Well, when Nancy asked about previous cases of Lord Advocates standing trial, I got to thinking about it a little more. Then I remembered that Vivika’s whole problem with Brynwolf started with something called Soul Jar. Forbidden psionic magic.”
“Vivika never explained what Soul Jar does, and nobody has volunteered to clue me in.”
“You know that most of the organ transplant technology used by the mundanes today started with the necrobiologists,” says Vivika. “But imagine if you could go even further to save a life. Beyond just transplanting healthy organs into a weak body? What if you could transplant a soul from a dying body into a healthy one.”
“I’m not going to like this at all.”
“No, you’re not. Brynwolf was dabbling in this. Psions aren’t like other witches. Our abilities manifests through our own bodies. Our bodies are conduits for our power. Without our bodies, we have difficulty…remaining active. I’ve told you before how difficult it is for me to keep you shielded because of my current state.”
“What would drive him to even attempt that kind of magic? Was Brynwolf sick?”
“No, but he was a Lord Advocate. You don’t get to that level of power without thinking ahead.”
“That ritual isn’t actually a psionic ritual, however,” says Nanna. “It was created by Medium Corella Dark, Lord Advocate to the Fifth, just before I became Magus of the School of Demonology. Though whether she actually created the ritual or just perfected it isn’t clear. But guess whose work she used as the basis for her research?”
“Chana Magus.”
“Exactly. Dark fled when the Council condemned her research. She was hunted down by Justicars and destroyed. One of those Justicars was Tomen Porter, Joshua Brynwolf’s great-uncle by marriage.”
“Sweet Arachne’s web! This is a tangled mess!” I exclaim. “Somehow Byrnwolf learned about the ritual from his great-uncle.”
“His uncle suffered from Alzheimer’s before he died,” says Vivika. “His mind would have been an open book to a psion like Joshua. And the timing matches. His uncle wouldn’t have known the ritual, but he would have known of its existence. And that would have been all Joshua needed considering the access he had as Lord Advocate.”
“Like I said, Nancy, I don’t believe in coincidences,” says Mom. “Brynwolf was dabbling in magic created by Chana Magus. He may have found more than a ritual. He may have found her as well.”
“You think they are working together,” says Vivika. “Of course, that is the only way the pieces fit. They both seek immortality. They both need a power ally to pursue their agenda. It would explain how Chana knew to pick her targets. Joshua knows all of the Justicars. He could provide names, locations, and times. It explains how she would have known who Houston was, and why she would have avoided killing him immediately. They couldn’t risk escalating the issue. I would go so far as to guess that the Esteemed that communicated with you was the same one that originally contacted you. It knew about the Inquest and more than likely came across the same evidence I did.”
“But why go to Nancy and Houston and not the Nine?” asks Eric. “Or go to the Council? Or the Archmage? Or the Justicars?”
“I would guess it did inform the Nine and was told not to do anything,” says Nanna. “The Nine sometimes move slower than a glacier. The Esteemed answer to the Nine, but aren’t beholden to them. They can act on their own accord.”
“And in a situation like this, you go to whom you can trust,” says Mom. “Very few minds will be safe from Joshua Brynwolf’s prying. He was able to trick Vivika and get her murdered, after all. There is no telling whose mind he is in.”
“Well, I’m not prepared to sit around and wait for this guy to show up and kill me,” says Houston. “So what do we do?”
“We have to lure him out,” says Vivika. “I may have an idea. But I’ll need some time to put it together. And I’ll need ritual materials.”
“Since when do psions need reagents?” asks Nanna.
“Oh dear Madame Magus. I didn’t get to my level without learning a few tricks from the other colleges. After all, not many minds were safe from me, either. You’d be surprised how much you can learn from scanning the minds of other witches. Suffice it to say, I can bait him. If we’re lucky, we’ll bait them both.”
“What do you need?” I ask.
“It will be a pricey list. But you own a shop. You should be able to get the components wholesale, right?”
“I’ve got a really bad feeling about this.” I say.
Parental Advisory
September 27th,
“Two thousand, four hundred and eighty-seven dollars! That’s the wholesale cost!” I yell at Houston as he packs up one of our witch client’s orders.
“Er, sorry?”
“Your mother is trying to bankrupt me!”
“Did you get quotes from some of the other vendors?”
“That is the best quote from the vendors. And that is spreading the order out over three different vendors because half of these things are special orders.” I throw the paper on my desk. “There is a two week lead time on petrified Persian griffin eggs! Two weeks! She can’t use the Greek griffin eggs that I keep on stock. Nooooooooo. She needs the Persian ones.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Nancy.”
“And the worst part is because of U.S. sanctions in most of the Middle East, I have to have the majority of this stuff shipped into Europe first to be shipped here. So I’m paying shipping and export fees twice!”
“Maybe you can get it all shipped to London and Eric can just go pick it up? He teleports back home every few days to check on Gregor anyway.”
“Hey, that’s a good idea. Probably save at least $300 that way. Good thinking! I knew I kept you around for some reason.”
“I’m feeling the love here, boss.” He holds up one of the items and squints. “Genuine Bulgarian vampire nail clippings. I don’t know what bothers me more. That there is actually a use for vampire nail clippings, that it matters which nationality those clippings come from, or that the vendor felt the need to include the word ‘genuine’ on the label.”
“I vote all of the above, mate,” says Eric as he comes into my office. “I talked to Gregor, Nancy. He says he knows a bloke that can
probably get you those cohuatl feathers in exchange for an imp familiar. Your nan has a hundred of them or some wacky number. Sounds like a square trade.”
“What school is this guy?”
“He’s an Enchanter. Mesmer I think. But he’s part of the Madrid Goth underground scene so he wants an imp. I didn’t ask too many questions. Imps don’t cost anything and those feathers cost a bomb.”
“Mesmer with an imp,” I sigh. That probably won’t end well. “Screw it. We’ll make the deal. That will save me $200.”
“I’ll ring Gregor and have him set it up.”
“See, boss? Now you’re below two grand,” says Houston as he leaves the office to open the shop.
“Great.” I shake my head and sit down at my desk to get the October inventories in order. Samhain is the biggest holiday on any witch’s calendar. The Veil is at its thinnest during Samhain, empowering magic and making connections to otherworldly denizens easier. Add to this the fact that the mundanes have made it one of their biggest holidays, spending close to seven billion a year on candy, decorations, costumes, and all things they perceive as witchy, and it’s a big deal for a shop like Three Wishes. Even as I start checking my order status with various vendors to ensure timely deliveries, I hear the chime of the shop bell as customers come in.
My cellphone rings. I look at the number. It’s the Brennons’ home number. My heart starts pounding. Lee never calls me from his parents’ home phone. He calls from his cell. I immediately fear the worst, but Mrs. Brennon sounds cheerful on the other end of the line.
“Good morning, Nancy!” she says. “I hope I’m not bothering you.”
“Not at all, Mrs. Brennon,” I say with relief.
“You can just call me Helen, dear.”
“What can I do for you…Helen?” I ask as my wave of relief retreats into a sea of suspicion. I begin wondering what Lee has actually told his parents about us.
“Oh, well, tomorrow is our anniversary. Monroe and I married forty years ago!”
“Congratulations! I wish Lee had mentioned it to me earlier.”
nancy werlock's diary s01 - episodes 9 Page 2
