Hereditary Curse (The Gatekeeper's Curse Book 2)

by Emma L. Adams

  River paused before saying, “They wanted to discuss the assignment. I did tell them about the wraiths, but they’re a rare sight outside the Vale, and the Court doesn’t believe they’re a direct threat.”

  The reason he’d ended up on the mission to protect our family was because he’d stumbled across what he believed was evidence of a conspiracy against the Courts, involving the wraiths. It clearly bothered him that the Sidhe weren’t taking the threat seriously.

  “And now they’re coming here,” I said. “How many people actually know how to banish them? I can’t be the only one. It’s not possible.”

  “Smaller wraiths like the ones you dealt with earlier can be banished by anyone with necromantic abilities,” River said. “What concerns me is who’s summoning them.”

  “Holly,” I said. “Maybe she’s in the Vale herself.”

  “Only Sidhe can cross realms as they please,” he said. “Those with the magic of a Sidhe can travel with an invitation or if a Sidhe takes them along for the ride. I’ve long suspected there’s a full-blooded outcast Sidhe behind this, but the Vale is hard to traverse and easy to hide in. In any case, it’s highly unlikely your cousin is there. She wouldn’t survive it.”

  “Guess not. I’m supposed to find her by the solstice, but… it’s that missing heir crap all over again. Did you get to speak to the Seelie King? Is he still alive?”

  “Last I heard, yes,” River said. “As for heirs, I’ve heard nothing, so I assume it was a false trail sent to lead you astray. The Court didn’t give me a specific mission, so I was able to return here as soon as I reported in.”

  He wasn’t telling me everything. Questions brewed, but if River was tied into a vow, he wouldn’t be able to spill his master’s secrets. Like it or not, that’s how Faerie operated.

  “And—my mother?” I asked.

  His gaze dropped. “Not a word from her, unfortunately.”

  “Like the messenger Sidhe said.” I hardly believed that I’d come face to face with both Summer and Winter Sidhe and walked away unscathed and without anyone declaring war on one another. And they’d listened to my account of the events. Whenever they’d come to speak to Mum or Hazel, the Sidhe had treated me like less than dirt. And Morgan too, come to that. We had common ground in our experiences, but the gaping rift of the last eight years made it difficult to figure out if it was possible to bridge the gap. Some wounds didn’t heal. Hazel probably wouldn’t forgive him, and as for Mum…

  River picked up his phone. “It’s time we went to the guild. You’re listed as patrolling with Jas and Lloyd today, and then I can help you with training. Lady Montgomery won’t be around, but she’ll be asking me for periodic updates on your progress.”

  He stood, and I did the same. So it was all business, then.

  As we left the coffee shop, a group of teenagers wearing necromancer cloaks walked past.

  “New trainees,” he explained. “We usually get permission to take them out of school. The talent tends to manifest around the age of twelve, same as mages and witches.”

  “So I have the skill level of a twelve-year-old. Awesome.”

  He shot me a smile, the first he had since he’d got back, which pretty much short-circuited my brain cells. Faeries were disturbingly attractive, and if anything, his rougher human edges only made him more handsome. “Your skill level is beyond most of the fully qualified necromancers,” he said in a low voice. “It’s up to you when you want to let them know that.”

  Hmm. I’d never particularly liked drawing attention, but personal hang-ups aside, if the wraiths got wind of my presence here, they might target the necromancers on purpose. Look what’d happened in Foxwood. On the other hand, it wouldn’t hurt to have other people on my team.

  River opened the doors to the lobby and approached a group in the corner. I recognised the two necromancers who’d hauled me in for questioning yesterday, wearing their usual black cloaks.

  “Hey,” said Lloyd. “Er, sorry about yesterday.”

  “Likewise,” added Jas. “Sorry we got suspicious.”

  “No worries,” I said, as though being arrested was an everyday occurrence for me. “Worth it to see your interrogation room.”

  “We don’t have an interrogation room,” said River.

  “Am I ever going to be allowed to forget that?” said Lloyd.

  “Nope,” said Jas, nudging him in the arm. “C’mon. We’re patrolling the High Street again. You’re coming with us, right… Ilsa? Lady Montgomery said.”

  “I’ll see you later,” River said.

  “Sure,” I said. “What exactly is this patrol about? Looking for rogue undead, or ghosts?”

  “Either,” said Lloyd. “More likely to be ghosts. This place attracts them like the plague. You’ll need a uniform first.”

  “I get to wear one of your Batman capes?”

  Jas snorted. “Yeah, they do look a bit stupid. But you can wear whatever you like underneath. Even nothing.”

  “Mental images, Jas,” said Lloyd.

  “I did wonder if everyone was wearing pyjamas and dressing gowns,” I admitted.

  “You never know,” said Lloyd. “There was that time Lady Montgomery sent someone home for wearing fluffy tiger slippers…”

  I cracked a grin. Maybe I could get on with the necromancers after all. They weren’t all gloomy like old Mr Greaves from Foxwood. Or Lady Montgomery. I couldn’t help wondering how in the world River had turned out so different to her. It wasn’t like Faerie was a particularly nice place either. And from my brief scan of the lobby, most of the other people here looked human. I didn’t see any other pointed ears… wait, there were one or two, but the majority of people here would be fully necromancers or half-ordinary human, because necromantic magic tended to come second to other types, like mage and faerie magic.

  Uneasily, I remembered that faerie-necromancers might be the ones summoning wraiths. Surely if the possibility had occurred to River, he’d be keeping an eye out for trouble.

  Ten minutes later, I left the guild with the others, holding my new cloak off the ground to avoid tripping over the end. It seemed to have been designed for someone a few inches taller than me, but at least it had a hood to keep the rain off. The skies were bruised grey above the old buildings, but the drizzle hadn’t turned into a full-on downpour yet. While patrolling, we stopped at each corner to tap into our spirit sight, reaching out for any hints of spiritual activity.

  You’d think the supernaturals being exposed would have put off most tourists, but there were even a few ghost tours running, groups of humans huddled under umbrellas on the cobbled High Street. Their eyes followed us with interest. Really. It’s not like necromancers are a rarity. Jas and Lloyd seemed cheerful enough, pointing out spots where particularly famous ghosts had appeared.

  “So there was this ghost with bleeding eyes who took four days for us to exorcise,” Lloyd said.

  “Ghosts don’t bleed,” Jas said.

  “He did. All over my clothes.”

  “That was ectoplasm.” She rolled her eyes. “Tell Ilsa about the time we accidentally solved a murder instead.”

  “This guy claimed to have a ghost haunting his apartment. We got there, and figured out pretty quickly that the spirit was out for revenge. Being a poltergeist, he could only levitate the crockery, not do any real damage. We traced the body, and handed the guy over to the police.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Sounds like you had a narrow escape.”

  “We would have done if Jas hadn’t wrestled him into a summoning circle beforehand,” said Lloyd. “You can do that to the living if you bind their spirit. Tricky high-level magic, though.”

  She cleared her throat. “Yeah, well. We got lucky. Definitely one of our most exciting missions.”

  “We can’t always have mass zombie swarms,” Lloyd said.

  “Why do they do that, anyway?” I asked. “Whenever I hear about zombies, it’s always a swarm. Never just one.”

  “Because t
he culprit’s usually a rogue necromancer without enough training to apply moderation,” explained Lloyd. “They use all the power they have, which raises a dozen undead at once, and then they’re burned out. So the undead go rampant without anyone controlling them.”

  “Ah.” I nodded. “Makes sense.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t know,” said Jas. “I was told you were some kind of prodigy.”

  I shrugged. “I’m supposedly a natural, but I don’t know all the theory.” And now I sounded like I was bragging. How else was I supposed to explain it? Surely it wasn’t unheard of for someone to wake up one morning with the ability to control the dead. Okay, they were usually twelve years old, apparently, but still.

  Lloyd pulled a device from his pocket which I recognised as the spirit sensor, and swore. “Speak of the devil. Undead, and no other necromancers in the area.”

  “Must be our lucky day,” Jas commented.

  No kidding. The book shifted in my pocket and if not for the cloak, its glow would be incredibly difficult to ignore. Instinctively, I switched on my spirit sight, reaching out to detect where the activity came from. My mind was pulled in the right direction without conscious thought, past the glow of the living bodies and towards the odd colourless light that indicated a spiritless body… on the bridge.

  My brother stood right next to an undead.

  6

  I changed direction down a side road, so suddenly that the others exclaimed.

  “Where are you going?” Lloyd asked.

  “This way.” Dammit, Morgan. Why had he decided to wander outside with undead around? Okay, he probably didn’t know… but he’d said he was being haunted. And instead of bringing him to the necromancers’ place with me, I’d left him alone at the house.

  “How do you know?” Jas hurried alongside me. I might be walking at top speed but I wasn’t particularly athletic, so they easily kept pace with me. “You don’t have a spirit sensor.”

  I shook my head. “My spirit sight goes pretty far.”

  “That’s like—master level,” said Lloyd in disbelief. “The undead are that way. I can’t let you run off—”

  I stopped dead. The air above the alley began to swirl in a horribly familiar way. Oh hell. My spirit sight couldn’t detect wraiths until they were too close to hide from. And the other two likely couldn’t even see it. But there were innocent humans in the streets behind us, with no idea what was coming.

  Cold air blasted the three of us full in the face. I staggered backwards but managed to keep my balance.

  “Holy shit,” exclaimed Lloyd. “What the hell did that?”

  Bye, bye, normality. “Guys,” I said out of the corner of my mouth. “I’ll take it. If it doesn’t work, get some candles down, asap. It works better if we all speak the banishing words at once.”

  Worst case scenario: I had to use the book. Publicly.

  Cold energy flooded my veins, and banishing words rose to my tongue. The current of air continued to swirl, and with my spirit sight on, the glowing white light that indicated the spirit’s presence burned like a dark, furious star.

  “What is it, a poltergeist?” demanded Jas, coming in behind me.

  “I said, stay back. Please.” I stepped closer, and spoke in the necromancers’ language, words which would send the beast beyond the veil forever.

  Another blast of air struck the nearby houses, and roof tiles slid free, getting caught in the whirlwind. I’d never faced a wraith in a confined space before, but when the first one I’d met had attacked our house, it’d managed to shatter the magically enhanced windows. Even the book didn’t protect me from being struck by falling roof tiles. I stepped out of reach, my words faltering. The banishing spell hadn’t worked.

  “Lloyd, the candles!” I shouted. “I can’t banish it without—”

  Lloyd and Jas yelled as roof tiles rained down, bouncing off the cobbled alley floor only to be sucked into the whirlwind again. Drain coverings and other debris joined it, a deadly trap completely blocking the alley. Jas backed up with an expression of terror while Lloyd stumbled over his own feet.

  “Retreat!” he yelled, and they ran.

  Damn. I pelted after them, cursing with every step. My magic-proof shield only blocked faerie magic, and this wraith was using kinetic energy, poltergeist-style. If the debris hit me at speed, I’d die. My lungs burned, my legs protesting, and the whirlwind grew louder behind me. Someone was going to get seriously hurt if I didn’t think of something, fast.

  I grabbed Lloyd’s arm and dragged him into another alley adjacent to the one we’d come from. “Throw down those candles, now.”

  He fumbled his pockets, rightly looking terrified, and tossed the candles onto the ground without a word. I dove to the ground and threw them into the main alley as fast as I could, my thumping heart drowned out by the growing roar of wind as it sucked more debris inside it. It can’t go on forever. The circle was wonky as hell but I didn’t have time to worry about aesthetic appeal. I threw the last candle into place, and the tornado exploded. I raised my arms over my head as broken glass and shattered roof tiles roared through the air, smashing more windows and dragging more debris along with them. At the last second, I lunged behind the circle and snapped my fingers, shouting the command. The lights came on at once, as another roar of wind sent me flat on my back. Raising my head, fingers digging into the cobbled ground, I half crawled to the alley opening and flung myself behind it.

  Windows shattered above the circle. Shards of glass stung my hands but the candles remained standing. “Speak the words when I do,” I gasped out. “Now.”

  Two voices rose to join mine. From the stunned tones of the others, they were in shock. I should be, too, but something—perhaps the book—held me icily calm. Wild power flowed in my veins, and some unrestrained part of me wanted to walk right out into that tornado and tell it to do its worst.

  Jas’s back straightened and her hands splayed, necromantic energy pushing back at the wraith. Lloyd did the same, more hesitantly. They could see it now. The wraith appeared on ground level as a human-shaped shadow, sucked towards the candles. As our chanting finished, their light flashed, and the beast exploded into fragments, blown away on the breeze. The wind died down in a series of shattering crashes. I winced at the sound, hoping nobody was hurt. The sound of sirens cut through, and I wobbled to my feet. “Get the candles,” I said to the others. “There might be more of them.”

  “Excuse me, what in hell was that?” Lloyd asked. “You’re not supposed to know how to do a banishing on that level.”

  “It’s a long story,” I said. “Trust me, though—if it didn’t come alone, we’re in a world of trouble. It takes more than one person to banish them.”

  If the wraiths were bold enough to make an overt attack in a crowded city, the necromancers needed to know. But… it wasn’t the spirit I’d sensed. Morgan?

  I reached out with my spirit sight, but didn’t detect him on the bridge anymore. Panic spiked my already-racing heart. Where is he? I reached out, my sight spanning the city. And I sensed him near the train station, no undead or ghosts in sight. He was safe. I breathed out, hands shaking, knees threatening to give way.

  “You’re gonna have to talk to Lady Montgomery about this,” said Lloyd. “If you won’t tell us… she has to know. That thing nearly killed us.”

  “I know.” Damned book. “Believe me, I want to explain it, but it’s complicated. River knows, and he might already have told her.” I hoped he had. Because I’d been framed for summoning a wraith once already, and looked more guilty than the majority of the necromancers at the guild.

  Lloyd picked the candles up. “Don’t leave blood on the candles. It’s the number one rule. I heard if you get blood in a summoning circle, it summons the angel of death.”

  “Bullshit,” said Jas.

  “Is it true?” I hadn’t heard that rule before, beyond the vague knowledge that anything to do with blood magic was bad news.

  “I
t is. I heard one guy set up a summoning circle and accidentally dripped blood into it. The circle sucked him inside, never to be seen again.”

  Jas shook her head. “You’re talking crap, Lloyd. Don’t scare Ilsa.”

  “Nothing scares Ilsa,” said Lloyd. “The madwoman nearly walked out into a kinetic tornado.”

  Yeah. I did. Just how much control did the book have over my decisions? Maybe it was for the best that I was trying to impose some level of control over my abilities.

  No more wraiths materialised on the walk back. People stared on the way into the guild, but that might have been because we all bore cuts on our hands and faces from the broken glass. But it could have been far worse. Jas got a call saying another team had taken down the undead we’d been sent to deal with. If we’d gone that way instead, I dreaded to think what the wraith would have done.

  Lady Montgomery waited for me in the lobby, an expectant look on her face. “Come with me, Ms Lynn.” She led the way down a corridor to a strong oak door bearing her name on a gold plaque. Her office was better than a cell, but I wished I’d been allowed to discuss my cover story with River first so we didn’t accidentally contradict one another. And if there were more wraiths out there, it was plain to see the necromancers were under-prepared to say the least.

  Her office was as severe as I expected. Oak wood desk and chair, bookshelves, and little else.

  Lady Montgomery faced me across the desk. “What exactly happened back there?”

  “I banished a wraith. I’m guessing River told you what they are?”

  “Faerie ghosts.” Scepticism tinged her voice. “As the witnesses said its actions resembled a poltergeist, we’re treating it as such. You spoke our binding words. Where did you learn those?”

  “River,” I said. “I copied him when I saw him banish a wraith the same way. Guess it’s lucky I remembered right.”