by Monica Sanz
When Sera arrived, Barrington was not in his office, rather Rosie who tidied up the workroom.
“He went out last night, but I never know when he’s in or out. For all I know he’s holed up in that room of his.” She waved her duster airily toward the black door. “Sometimes he’ll vanish in there for days at a time.”
Sera eyed the door keenly like one able to stare through to the other side. “What’s in there?”
Rosie shrugged and finished dusting the telescope by the window. “Never been in there myself, to be honest. The last I saw of the room was when he dragged in trunks and trunks of his father’s work. Research probably. Just as dedicated as his father. Other than that, I haven’t a clue what goes on in there.”
Something illegal, I’m sure, Sera thought to say but decided against it. Whatever orders he spoke of with Rowe and Gummy were none of her business. It would remain a mystery, both the room and the man.
“Ring if you need me,” Rosie said and excused herself. Moments later, the door in question groaned open, and Sera startled. Barrington exited the room, fully dressed.
He stopped short at seeing her. “Good evening, Miss Dovetail.”
A reply edged on her lips, but instead of answering, Sera scrutinized his gaze, searching for signs of the man who had stood before her the other night, his stare warm and touch gentle. Her heart dimmed. Though she was happy his sorrow from that night was gone, the man from that night was gone, too. She sighed. She had been right to push the thoughts of that moment to the back of her mind, and she would think no more about it, even if a little bitterness tinged her heart.
Barrington arched a brow in her silence. “Is everything all right?”
Sera cleared her throat and steeled her spine. “Yes, yes, everything is fine, Professor. I didn’t know you were there. Rosie said she didn’t hear you come in.”
He closed the door behind him. “I got in quite early. Needed lots of rest for what we’ll be doing.”
“And what will we be doing?” she asked as he set a Gladstone bag on the worktable and opened it. There were some vials within it, filled with a blood-like liquid. “What are those?”
“What we are doing, Miss Dovetail, is going to Straightwater Cemetery,” he said as he walked to the bookcase. He plucked out a book and thrust it into the bag. “It’s a rather long drive, but that’s where our next body is. I would transfer us there, but depending on what we encounter, our reserves may be too low for us to transfer back. I will not take the risk. As for those, they’re blood vials used for healing—among other things.”
Sera blinked. Blood magic? That was just as forbidden as necromancy, but she shook her head. Little should’ve surprised her about Barrington anymore. “Right. And what are we to do with this body?” She froze. “Surely you don’t mean for me to raise it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he called out from the pantry. He exited with a handful of candles and set them in the bag. “You will not be raising any bodies.”
She hefted out a sigh. “Good—”
“I will.”
“What?”
He took inventory of the bag while Sera looked to him expecting—hoping—to find jest on his face. He shut the bag and surveyed his notebook.
Sera sank onto the stool, her heart in her stomach. “You can’t do this. You heard what happens. Once the spirit tells its secret, you’ll burn and die.” She crossed her arms, mulish. “No. That’s beyond all bounds. You may be my superior but…but you’re not raising that body.”
He paused in his work, a smile on his lips.
“You’re smiling?” she asked under a narrow gaze. “How is any of this amusing?”
“You’re worried about me.”
She opened her mouth and then shut it, a blush prickling her cheeks. “After all I said—that you can die in doing this—all you gathered is that I’m worried about you?”
His smile widened, and her hands clenched tighter. “I’m flattered that you worry for me, Miss Dovetail, but it must be done, and I’m the only one who can do it.”
“I would fear for anyone doing this, because it’s mad and dangerous, and it fazes you not in the slightest.”
He stuffed the notebook into his inner pocket. “We have no other choice. We need to know who the next Keeper is before the Brotherhood or the Sisters of Mercy discover it. I must raise this body, and you will keep it from killing me.”
“How? I’m not trained in healing. Quite lousy at it, to be honest. You’ve seen my file.”
“I’m not talking about healing. When I raise this body, I must create a connection by touching it. The spirit will fight me, but it’s not my first summoning from the Underworld. I can handle it for a slight longer to gain its secret. The moment it breaks its oath and tells its secret, you must snatch my hand from the body. This will untether the soul from me before it has had a chance to drag me into the Underworld with it. Timing is of the essence. A few seconds is the difference between life and death.” He smiled, a perfect row of white teeth. “Easy enough.”
Sera’s mouth gaped, a series of words garbled in her throat.
With a quick rake of his hair, he slid on his hat. “Ready?”
“No. No, I’m not ready. How can you be so calm? What if I can’t save you?”
He grabbed the Gladstone bag. “If I had any doubt in your ability to do this or anything else I’ve ever asked you to do, I never would’ve requested you help me.” He held her veiled hat out to her. “If there’s anyone capable of the most dangerous tasks, it’s you, Miss Dovetail, and I trust you with my life.”
At any other moment, these words would have meant the world to her, yet she gazed down to the hat and wavered. She was his only protection against losing his life, and that chilled her soul. But she accepted the hat and slipped it on. He’d asked her. Not Gummy or Rowe, but her. She would pass this test and keep him safe, come the Brotherhood or the Underworld itself.
…
Straightwater Cemetery came into view in the distance, a seaside burial ground seemingly as abandoned as the bodies interred there. Feathery weeds trembled in the gusts that swept in over the water. The ocean roared and forewarned the imminent storm blackening the sky. Sera pulled down the brim of her hat, the hairs at the back of her neck on end. She’d been taught the importance of omens. Taught to heed them as a magician’s connection with nature. While divination was her worst subject, this intuition squeezed her belly. They shouldn’t be there, and every fiber within her knotted at this fact.
Barrington, however, read over his notes at ease. If the weather was an omen, it eluded him altogether. Either that, or he simply didn’t care.
“How did you learn to do necromancy?” she asked, desperate to add sound to the terrible silence between them. Anything to drown out the violent crashing of waves underscored by rumbling thunder in the distance.
“When I was younger, my father tried to recruit me into his studies on the Brotherhood and Purists, but I was more interested in other…aspects of magic.”
“Black magic.”
He nodded. “I wanted to understand it, to see what was so evil about it. It all seemed to be a matter of self-control to me, like wandless magic. My mentor taught me in all of the branches of magic, the basics of necromancy being one of them. Alchemy, however, became my passion.”
Sera meant to ask why, but the carriage stopped.
There was but a half-moon in the sky, and the night favored deeper shadows. A mist hovered around the cemetery like a spell meant to keep the souls prisoner behind the rusted bars.
Sera surveyed the sacred land where tombs looked more like sleeping monsters, the moss strangling the headstones the dried blood of their victims—those who dared trespass and disturb their rest. The stillness was tense, and she curled into her cloak.
“Why couldn’t we have had the body taken elsewhere?” she muttered.
“Unlike the beasts that commit these crimes, I have respect for the dead. I’m already waking them from
their slumber, but to also desecrate their place of rest?”
She rubbed her arms. “I suppose. I’ve never been fond of cemeteries, especially not now that I can see the dead.”
Barrington grinned at her as he pushed aside the run-down wrought-iron gate. “Fear not, Miss Dovetail. If you see a soul and wish for it to leave, command it to go. As for the bodies here, they can’t come back to life—save for the one we’ll be raising, of course.”
She rolled her eyes and, with the lantern held before her, ducked in through the small entryway he managed to create in the gate. “I’m glad you still have a sense of humor.”
A path of cobblestone damaged by time and vegetation led through the maze of headstones, broken pillars, and wingless angels. Beyond the fence, jagged rocks marked the shore. In the shadows there were more stone monsters in wait, either protecting the dead from those who sought to plunder their graves or protecting the sea from spirits who wished to escape death and run into it.
“The one we seek is this way, closest to the sea I was told.” He climbed down a small, crumbling hill and offered a hand to her. “Her name is Georgiana Egerton.”
Sera accepted his help, but the ground beneath her gave way, and she tumbled forward. Barrington’s arms came around her waist, a firm hold that kept her upright and warmed her in an instant.
“Miss Dovetail, are you all right?”
“My foot was tangled in my skirts.” She broke away, thankful for the veil that hid her blush. “I’m amazed they found her so quickly.”
“The Brother spoke quite a bit before his death. We had her name, and with a bit of help, some of Gummy’s sources were able to track her down.”
“Good thing she has a lot of friends,” Sera muttered into a passing gust.
“Pardon me?”
“I said how can we be sure it’s her?” she lied as he continued forward.
Barrington stopped before a crumbling, mossy tombstone, a stone dove perched atop. “The bird is a good indication.”
Sera shone the lantern to the headstone. “So is the name.” Georgiana Egerton was carved into the stone, as was a dove surrounded by the seven elemental signs.
Barrington knelt before his bag and took inventory, then pulled out a worn leather book. Untying the straps that kept it closed, he opened to a page somewhere in the middle and handed it to Sera.
She lifted her veil to get a better look. There was a protection circle, but around the border was another spell. “What are these outer ciphers?”
“An unearthing spell. Fastest way to dig out the body. Once done, aim your wand and ignite the spell using the word ‘exhume.’”
“Whatever happened to no magic for personal gain?”
“Would you prefer to dig her out by hand? If so, then ladies first.”
Eyes narrowed, she snatched her wand from its holder. “How chivalrous of you.”
Barrington gave her a side-eye glance, a grin at his lips. “I try.”
Scoffing, she bent over and traced out the symbols on the ground, the protection circle always first. Any spells performed within its borders were under her domain. Once the spell was completed, Professor Barrington came alongside her.
“Very good. Now, ignite the spell.”
She aimed her wand to the ground. “Exhume.”
The earth above the grave began to churn and sucked under all overgrowth. Slowly, the ground parted. Dirt rolls folded over and over as though invisible hands parted the dirt to either side. Depth developed until a wood coffin was revealed in the hole.
Barrington slipped off his coat and draped it over the headstone. Black candles in hand, he sat on the edge of the grave and jumped down. Thunder rumbled in the distance—a dire warning, or so Sera imagined. But it was too late to turn back now.
The coffin snapped open with a flick of Barrington’s wand. The gray, gaunt corpse lay within, insects skittering through the various facial holes. A large beetle crawled into a vacant eye socket and Sera shivered, feeling as though it scuttled along her skin.
Once the candles were arranged strategically around the corpse, Barrington knelt beside the coffin.
“Good luck, Professor,” Sera called down, her voice jagged.
He met her eyes, the reflections of the candles little lights at the cores. “Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance,” he quoted. “Strong men believe in cause and effect.”
She frowned, and he rewarded her with a smile.
With the corpse’s emaciated hand in his, Barrington pressed his wand to his wrist and murmured words out of Sera’s hearing. White bands of magic twisted from his skin and wound about the corpse’s bony arm.
“Follow the path of light to life,” he called. “Awaken, I command thee.”
The winds about them died, though the storm loomed much closer than before. This new stillness pressed down harder, and the shadows around them deepened.
“Follow the path of light to life,” he called again. The bands of magic tightened. “Awaken, I command thee!”
A strong blow whipped past and devoured all warmth. Sera wrapped her arms about herself. If only it could keep her thunderous pulse steady.
Barrington closed his eyes, his brows dipped in concentration. “Follow the light to life…”
A skeletal arm flicked. Then a foot.
“Awaken, I command thee!”
The corpse crackled as it turned its head, folded at the waist, and sat upright. Sera shivered, her joints tense and hand tight around her wand.
The cadaver took in a deep breath that rattled its chest bones like tapping fingers, then exhaled. The whispery breath whisked past Sera like a frigid breeze, and the temperature dropped. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Though wearing a warm dress and cloak, the cold seeped beneath her clothing and bit her flesh—an unnatural physical sensation, as if spirits dug their skeletal hands into her skin, desperate to worm inside her body and possess her. She sucked in a breath and spun, aiming her wand, but found no one there.
The corpse inhaled again, and with each crackling cycle of breath, rime crept over the ground and the walls of the grave, suffocating and devouring the earth under its hellish crust. Sera shifted back, lest it crawl up her legs and into her pores, sucking the life from her limbs and magic from her soul until she, too, withered into a gray and gaunt skeleton.
Barrington winced, the back of his vest damp with sweat. “Miss Egerton, a pleasure.”
The skeleton’s mouth rattled, but no sound came out.
“Ah yes, you will be granted the ability to speak, but first, you’re forbidden from cursing me or using any spell against me. You will answer all of my questions with only truth, after which I agree to release you to your eternal rest.”
Miss Egerton nodded, jerky movements that sprouted goose bumps along Sera’s arms.
“Very well. Thank you, Miss Egerton—”
“Sisssster Egerton,” replied the corpse. Her voice echoed unnaturally, a ghostly whisper. Sera surveyed their surroundings, sure other spirits had materialized to repeat her words.
“Oh, of course, forgive me. A Sister of Mercy, yes?”
The skeleton’s head jutted up and down. Crack, crack. Crack, crack.
“I’ve been told you were the previous Keeper of a spell that has since been passed down to a new Keeper.”
Sister Egerton turned her head to Barrington, empty sockets boring into him. “Oath of blood…not broken in death.”
“I understand, but…” Barrington cut off with a hiss. A droplet of blood streamed from his nose. He whipped out a white handkerchief and dabbed at the blood. “But you need to tell me who the next Keeper is.”
The corpse thrashed its head side to side, stringy black strands like a whip to the air around her. Barrington shut his eyes tightly and pulled his shoulders in, groaning through clenched teeth. A drop of blood trailed from his ear, streaming down along his jaw.
“Professor?” Sera inched into the grave.
“I’m fine,
stay where you are,” he told her with some difficulty, his frame heaving with each breath. “Tell me who the next Keeper is. I demand it.”
Her entire body rattled this time. “Oath of blood. Oath of blood—”
A crackle resounded in the distance, followed by the familiar blast of magic crashing against magic.
“Professor!” Lucas screamed from afar. “They’re here!”
Sera straightened just as a hooded figure emerged from the shadows up the path and speared a flare of magic at her. She ducked and dove back, and the orb crashed against the headstone behind her. A rain of stone exploded into the air and grave.
Sera winced; a current of pain shot down her shoulder that had collided against a neighboring stone slab. Digging her fingers into the frigid earth, she tried to crawl back toward Barrington, but another flare struck the earth before her, then picked it up like a wave. She rolled into the shadows and curled behind one of the headstones there. After a moment of hiding, she scurried behind the neighboring gravestone, hoping to get back to Barrington. Flashes of magic illuminated the ground around her with deafening cracks and explosions.
“Lucas, cover me!” she yelled and peered around the tombstone—
She screamed, another flash darting past her. It blasted against the body of a now-headless angel statue. Sera blindly aimed her wand and speared flares of magic. In the momentary diversion, she dashed behind another tombstone, then behind the mausoleum, sandwiched between the wall and the rusted gate surrounding the cemetery.
“Damn it!” she hissed. She’d been forced too far from Barrington, and he needed her! She had to sever his connection to Sister Egerton, or she could lose him forever. Magic thrashed within her, a feral heat prickling the underside of her skin. Her body trembled under its strain. She would burn them, all of them. But she had to focus to destroy these men, to save Barrington. He trusted her with his life, and she would not fail him.
“There are four now!” Lucas yelled from somewhere in the darkness.
Four. She would obliterate four.
