by Corey Edward
The metal sound faded and then came a voice which sounded more like a hideous, demonic rumble.
“TO NOSY HENRY CANDLE AND HIS MEDDLING FRIENDS,” it boomed, which could only belong to Narlothotep. “I KNOW WHO YOU ARE. I KNOW WHAT YOU DID. I COULD SMELL YOU ALL OVER MY OFFICE. DID YOU LIKE MY LITTLE PET? HE’S NOT AS CUTE AS A PUG, BUT HE LOVES TO BITE.”
“Narlothotep,” I said through gritted teeth. “We liked killing it, if that’s what you mean.”
“YOUR END IS NIGH, CANDLE WIZARD. SOON, THIS ENTIRE KINGDOM SHALL BOW TO ME ON BENDED KNEE. EVERYONE YOU LOVE… EVERYTHING YOU VALUE. IT WILL BE ENSLAVED.”
“And you’ll be defeated,” I shouted.
“A GROUP OF CHILDREN AND THEIR PORTLY MUTT AGAINST THE GREATEST NECROMANCER WHO HAS EVER LIVED? I’D LOVE TO SEE YOU TRY. TELL ME… ARE YOUR GRANDPARENTS SAFE FROM MY WRATH? HOW MUCH FAITH DO YOU HAVE IN THOSE SIGILS TO CONTAIN ME WHEN I RETURN TO MY OLD VESSEL?”
He was trying to scare me, but I wasn’t about to let him. Giving him that would be giving him an inch too much.
“Not as much faith as I have in our ability to send your ass back to the history books where you belong,” I said, aiming for fearless and landing halfway there. “Oh, wait. You weren’t important enough to be in those, either.”
“HEED THIS VOW, HENRY CANDLE. BY THE END OF SAMHAIN, YOUR CORPSE SHALL DANCE FOR ME BENEATH THE MOONLIGHT.”
“At least my corpse can dance,” I said. “Yours can’t even get out of a coffin.”
“Christ, Henry,” said Frankie. “Burn him again and we’ll have to call this the second Inquisition.”
“Oh, I’m just getting started.” I held out my hands and, recognizing the cue, everyone joined into a circle. I called upon my Mana and readied a spell, drawing on their own to help me out. I may not have been able to defeat him, but I could still drive his dark magic away from this space. “Say bye-bye, Narlothotep.”
“YOU ARE NAUGHT BUT OUTCASTS. ALL OF YOU. LEMMINGS LED BY A LITTLE BOY. HOW COULD YOU EVER STAND UP TO ME?”
“Like this,” I said. “Shadowy Pharaoh, dead flesh and bone. Exit this building and leave us alone.”
A roar, like that of a starving lion, shook the office. Little black shapes fell from the ceiling and crawled toward us, as if the top of the building was leaking them. I didn’t realize what they were until I saw their stingers. With them fell large amounts of sand, dribbling down from the ceiling and falling onto the floor like the bottom of an hourglass.
“Scorpions,” Molly squeaked. “They’re everywhere!”
“And sand, too,” added Enisa. “It’s filling the room!”
“Ignore them,” I shouted. “Say it with me. Together, now. Shadowy Pharaoh, dead flesh and bone. Exit this building and leave us alone.”
“GIVE UP,” came Narlothotep’s slithery voice. “GIVE UP GIVE UP GIVE UP GIVE UP-”
The scorpions were nipping at our feet now, snapping, crawling, threatening to weasel up our legs. The sand had reached our ankles, and it was pouring quicker, crawling with black, snapping bugs-
And my own spell wasn’t working because my friends were terrified, their energy frantic and red, and-
“HENRY,” shouted Enisa.
“Again,” I shouted back. “Shadowy Pharaoh, dead flesh and bone. Get out of this building and leave us alone. Shadowy Pharaoh, dead flesh and bone. Get out of this building and leave us alone. Shadowy-”
A scorpion pinched Rusty’s paw and he yelped —
Enisa screamed, and I realized she was no longer holding my hand but flicking them off her jeans into the sand and —
A scorpion fell onto Frankie’s head and he stumbled away, wrestling it off his skull as he fell down into a pile of sand —
Kid, a voice shoved into my head.
Dad? I thought back.
Yeah. Listen, I don’t got much time. I’m going to lend you some of my Mana -- the tiny bit that Narlothotep hasn’t yet stolen. I want you to use that power to banish him out of my office. Understand?
But-
UNDERSTAND?
I do.
A flurry of familiar, dangerous Mana worked its way into my veins. The power illuminated my soul, making me feel powerful. This was my dad’s Mana, the Mana of our heritage, and it was ancient. More ancient, even, than Narlothotep.
I held both of my hands into the air and shouted at the top of my lungs.“SHADOWY PHARAOH, DEAD FLESH AND BONE. GET OUT OF THIS BUILDING AND LEAVE US ALONE!”
The spell exploded from my blood and my father’s magic filled the air, creating a blast of blue light that washed out the rest of the room. Almost immediately, the darkness of Narlothotep’s magic left the office, as if he were an enemy soldier making a hasty retreat. The scorpions and sand vanished. The only evidence that anything at all had happened were the books and papers lying on the floor.
I didn’t know how it had happened or how my father kept contacting me from the beyond. I mean, he barely even wanted to talk to me when he was alive. So why the sudden change of heart? Not that I didn’t appreciate his intervention. If not for him, we’d be neck-deep in scorpion-infested sand.
“Is everyone okay?” I asked. Luckily, nobody seemed seriously injured. I could feel Rusty’s pain at the scorpion’s sting, but it barely even pierced skin. Just like him, they were more bark than bite.
“How the hell did his magic get in here?” asked Molly. “This place has more Sigils than an apocalypse bunker!”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But it worries me. He knows where we were and what we did. And after what I just did, he’s going to be pretty pissed off and probably want revenge.”
“If this place isn’t safe, then none of us are,” said Enisa. “Should we even go home tonight?”
“If we can’t go home, where can we go? He’ll find us no matter where we were hiding. And that’s why we need to take the fight to him. We need to find that Grimoire.”
“First thing tomorrow morning,” agreed Frankie, fixing his hair in the mirror. “Bright and early. And as soon as we find that book, I’m torching it.”
Nobody could argue. It was going on midnight, and I still had to drop everyone off before I could arrive home. If Grams found out, I’d probably be burning too. But the most important thing was that my friends were okay and so was I.
This wasn’t over. Far from it.
We’d only won a battle in the middle of a war.
Fourteen
The Blair Henry Project
I awoke to find my inbox drowning in a sea of texts. Twelve of them, to be exact, and all in the same group chat.
ENISA: Good morning, everyone! Rise and shine. We’ve got ourselves a necromancer to kill.
FRANKIE: Christ Enisa, it’s not even eight yet. The only thing I want to kill is YOU for waking me up! Rock stars like me need our beauty sleep, okay?
ENISA: You’ll live, beautiful.
ENISA: I hope.
ENISA: Henry, Molly, you guys, okay?
MOLLY: I was, until I realized how early it is. Are we really going to do this before breakfast?
ENISA: Not at all. I never leave the house without a good cup of coffee.
MOLLY: Henry, are you alive?
HENRY: Barely. I think I’ve got a magic hangover.
FRANKIE: Is that even a thing?
MOLLY: I don’t think it’s a thing.
HENRY: It is now.
HENRY: Everyone, we meet at the shop at ten o’clock sharp. Bundle up; looks like it’s going to be a cold one!
ENISA: As cold as Frankie’s show?
FRANKIE: WOAH, WATCH IT, GIRLFRIEND
FRANKIE: If you remember, I got a standing ovation
ENISA: Actually, I seem to remember it differently… but kay!
The rest of the thread consisted of Enisa and Frankie bickering about the concert, with Molly occasionally chiming in to add her two cents. Though it had veered wildly off the topic of our crazy night, I didn’t have time to respond. There was so much I had to do today
, and it was already after eight. I hopped out of bed, showered, and threw on some jeans and a hoodie, perfect comfort for the chilly day ahead. Then, I woke Rusty and we hurried downstairs into the kitchen, lured by the intoxicating smell of fresh pancakes and warm syrup.
“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” Grams said, voice full of unexpected vinegar. She and Gramps were already sitting at the table, their stacks half-eaten, and I was standing there shocked.
What do I do now?
“I saved you and Rusty a plate. You probably need the nourishment, after your late night and all.”
Oh, shit.
Grams knows.
“Yeah,” I said, pulling up a chair next to Gramps. “There was, uh, a traffic jam. After the show.”
“I’ll bet. Being stuck in traffic for three hours sounds like quite the jam.”
“Rose,” said Gramps. “We just talked about this. Let it go.”
“Let what go?” I asked innocently, dousing my pancakes with syrup. Rusty, hungry dog that he was, just tore into it… When it came to carbs, he was unstoppable. “I don’t understand.”
“Well, your grandfather was looking on the Face Book and discovered the Brew closes at ten. But you didn’t arrive home until after one,” said Grams. “I know because I couldn’t sleep and was up late reading. Was there a massive pile-up that the news neglected to mention? Or was Frankie’s show just that good that it literally brought down the house?”
My blood froze solid in my veins. Though Grams didn’t usually mind where I went or what I did, she’s been on paranoid grandparent duty ever since my father was murdered. And while I hated lying to her, she didn’t fully understand just how important it was that I needed to be able to leave the house today to find — and destroy — the Grimoire.
“We…” Think of an excuse, Henry, dammit, think. Now! “Uh. There was another band that played after Frankie’s and it dragged the event out until after closing. We didn’t get out of there until 11:40 or so. Totally lost track of time, I’m sorry. Won’t happen again.”
“I told you,” said Gramps. “I said it right then and there, Rose, that they probably just got held up.”
Grams raised an eyebrow and stood there for a full minute, staring at me as if she didn’t know what to believe. I was far from the best liar, but I knew she wouldn’t want to start slinging around accusations without further proof.
“I just want you to be safe, Henry,” she said, softening her tone. “Gracie was sneaking around a lot, too. Before she… before.”
“Before you found out my dad was a wizard?” I finished.
“Ancient history,” barked Gramps, taking a sip of his coffee. “Been over it and over it for the past twenty years. It’s done with, Rose.”
“Maybe to you, Hank,” Grams said. “But I still feel the sting of her death every minute of every day. Losing you would break what’s left of my heart, Henry. And I’m much too old to put it back together again.”
I didn’t know what to say to this. She was absolutely right in her unspoken suspicions: I really was sneaking around and fighting the forces of darkness just like Mom did when she was my age. And just like Mom, I had lied to her multiple times over the past week.
That was the worst part of all of it.
Grams deserved a lot more from me than lies.
I was five years old when Mom passed away. A police officer with the Boston Police Department, she was investigating some sort of weird cult that was meeting in the sewers beneath the city and kidnapping children. She went down there with my father one night and never came back up. The only one who knew what happened to her was Dad, and he never told a soul.
In the years that followed, Dad sank into a deep depression and drank his demons away. He threw himself into his work and left me home alone, so often I had no choice but to learn to fend for myself. The bank foreclosed on his house and we had to move into a cheap apartment around the block from Candle Paranormal Investigations.
I went to live with my grandparents after they learned of how bad his drinking was. The courts formally separated us due to his drinking, and my grandparents vowed to gain full custody should he ever drink around me again. They gave me everything I always wanted and embraced me in a way my dad never could. I started to hate his business and everything it stood for. I started to hate him. I would never be like him, I told myself. I would never put my job ahead of my family or friends.
Never.
I wiped away the tear that inched down my cheek and excused myself. I didn’t want them to notice that I was crying.
Candle wizards had no time for emotions.
~&~
Grams didn’t stop me from driving over to Candle Paranormal Investigations, though she looked like she wanted to. I’d been doing it periodically for the past few weeks to clean up some things in his office, so it wasn’t entirely unusual or eyebrow-raising for me to travel there on a Saturday.
We met with coats on and coffees in hand, and then we all piled into my car to go see Miss Delaney. The school librarian lived in a small brick townhouse right at the edge of Dunwich Heights. She had never been married, which meant that she had plenty of time to devote to her numerous cats- two of which were watching us from the window as we pulled up.
Rusty ducked his head as soon as he saw them sitting in the window, burying his face in Enisa’s jacket.
He and I had found ourselves in a variety of creepy situations over the years. We’d banished ghosts, fought Darkon, and, most recently, narrowly escaped being murdered by the spirit of a psychotic pharaoh. But out of every creature on the face of the Earth, there was one that scared him more than anything else.
Cats.
“What’s wrong with him?” Frankie asked.
“He’s terrified of cats,” I said. “He won’t go near them.”
“Really? Why?”
I shrugged. “Dunno. Rusty’s still got his dog habits even if he does have a little magic in him.”
We got out of the car and walked up to the door. I let Frankie carry Rusty since he seemed to have more faith in his ability to protect him from the evil feline menace than he did me. I rang the doorbell and it opened to reveal Miss Delaney in a pink nightgown, her hair up in curlers.
“Well, look who it is,” she exclaimed, a grin working its way onto her face. “Welcome, children! It’s so nice to see you on this brisk October morning.”
“Nice to see you too, Miss D,” I said. “I just wish the circumstances were better.”
“Oh?” she frowned. “Is something the matter?”
“It’s probably better to talk inside.”
“Come on in, then, all you. And take your shoes off at the mat, please.”
She stood aside and held open the door. All four of us made our way inside and did as instructed.
Miss Delaney kept her house every bit as spic and span as her library. Not a thing was out of place; not a single crumb or spot of dust could be found anywhere on the wooden floors or rugs. Cats were resting on every comfortable surface, ranging from furry black to smooth orange. For Molly, it was paradise. For Rusty, it was a house of horrors. I could see only his tail as he hid within the folds of Frankie’s flannel shirt.
“Please excuse the kittens,” she said. “They’re like potato chips. You can never have just one.”
“Excuse them?” Molly repeated. “They’re adorable!”
“Yeah, tell that to Rusty,” Frankie said. “The little dude’s a hot mess.”
Miss Delaney led us to the dining room, to a circular table. In the center of a table was a brilliantly polished crystal ball sitting atop a golden stand. At first, I thought that it was blankly reflective, almost like a mirror but in a spherical sort of shape. But the longer I looked, the more I noticed fog moving around within.
We all took places around the table. A clock chimed, signaling that noon had arrived. A fluffy white cat meowed once and jumped onto Miss Delaney’s lap.
“Have you ever seen a crystal ball, Henry?
” Miss Delaney asked.
“Not in person,” I admitted. “How do they work?”
“Well, you need to possess the Sight in order to properly use one. Otherwise, it functions just like any other pretty bauble you might find in a curiosity shop somewhere. This ball has been in my family for generations. It’s held up remarkably well, you see.”
“I can. And it’s a good thing, because we might need it today.”
“I figured you would. What for?”
“It’s the murders,” I said. “We found out why they’re happening.”
“Oh?”
“They seem to be centered around a Grimoire that a Darkcrafter is using as a Phylactery.”
“A phylactery?” She frowned, stroking the cat’s fur. “It’s been some time since I’ve heard that word. I believe I read it in a book somewhere.”
“Same here. That book said that if we destroy the Phylactery, we can destroy the spirit that’s behind my father’s death and the death of three other wizards in the Boston area. But our biggest problem is that we don’t know where it is in the first place.”
“So you want me to find it for you.”
“Only if you’re willing. This is dark, dangerous stuff and I hate to involve you in it. But it’s important that we stop this killer. He means to conquer the city, and Merlin knows what else he’ll do after that.”
“I’m already involved by virtue of knowing you children and having you here, in my home. My only fear is drawing unwanted attention toward myself.”
“We’ll make sure that doesn’t happen,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure how we’d do that. “Do you think you’re able to find the location of the Phylactery?”
“It’s possible.” She frowned. “Do you have anything that I can go by? Do you know what form the Phylactery is in?”
“It’s a Grimoire, actually; an ancient book of black magic. Hold on.” I reached into my pocket, pulled out my phone and pulled up the picture of my father’s dead body. “This is how my dad was found. He has in his hand a slip of paper ripped out of the Grimoire. We think he was trying to bury it in order to get rid of Narlothotep.”
