Raven's Ascent

by Ben Blackwell

  “Thank you for believing in me. In us,” I quickly said to change the topic. “I know the plan is crazy, and we don’t even really have a plan for what happens next, but we have to stop whoever is responsible for the attacks by any means.”

  “You’re going to lay a trap, right?” the elementalist asks asked, his arms crossed. “How many people do you have to capture them?”

  Octavian and I looked at each other, embarrassed. “Uhm… just us?” I hesitantly responded after Octavian kept looking at me expectantly.

  Aaron stared at me, then broke out in laughter. “Alright, I see. Well, count me in. I’d rather fight an evil necromancer than sit through another council meeting.” He imitated tying a noose around his neck and hanging himself with it.

  “So, do you have a location for the trap yet?” Aaron looked at me again.

  I frowned, then shook my head. “Not really, no.” We really hadn’t thought this plan through, it seemed.

  “What about that warehouse?” Octavian chimed in, already finished with pouting. “The one where we had the first meeting, over the dead witch. Seems kind of fitting, and it’s wide open and isolated.”

  Aaron’s eyes lit up. “That’s good. I haven’t been there, but I know the location. Everyone ready to roll or do you still need to collect supplies or any artifacts?”

  It didn’t help my confidence that he kept overestimating our preparedness. We had nothing but our wits and fighting skills, so we nodded. Octavian called his driver, and about forty minutes and an uneventful drive later, we arrived at the warehouse.

  The sun was setting, sending long rays across the city and sidewalks just like the last time I was here. Unlike the last time, the gate to the warehouse was locked with a metal chain. I was about to ask if anyone had the key, but apparently, I was the only one with such concerns.

  Without worrying too much about it, Octavian took the chain and ripped it apart. Whoever had placed it there didn’t think to use a chain strong enough to withstand a vampire’s strength. Then again, I could have blasted it open as well. So could most witches, probably. Maybe it was only meant to keep humans out, not supernaturals.

  While Octavian opened the gate, I pulled my phone out after another message from Allard came in.

  Another attack. Shaman dead. Elders declared a state of emergency. Lethal self-defense authorized. Watch out.

  A cold shiver ran down my spine as I read the message out loud for the others. They didn’t seem surprised, but they did seem just as worried as I was . It was not going to take long until this got out of hand.

  Quickly, we entered the building, our determination renewed. Inside, I saw that the table was still in place, chairs, folding chairs, and crates gathered around it. I put the book on the table while Octavian and Aaron searched the warehouse briefly, looking for anyone or anything unusual.

  While they were searching, I quickly put my backup plan in place. I didn’t mention it, because I knew Octavian wouldn’t be too happy about it, and I also didn’t want to appear like I didn’t believe our initial plan would work. But I wouldn’t have survived that long without backup plans, and it was a habit I wasn’t about to give up.

  When the others came back a minute later, I was inspecting the book further. With hesitant curiosity, I opened the book carefully. The pages were filled with runes, symbols, text, as well as small drawings and sketches. But what was most notable about it was the smell. It smelled like something died in it, as if I had just opened a grave. But not a very old one. More like a mass grave, or a corpse that had been sitting in the trunk of a car on a hot summer day.

  “Close it!” Aaron’s voice boomed through the warehouse, echoing through the metallic walls and roof. His face was twisted, his jaw clenched.

  “Did you smell it all the way over there?” I frowned as I quickly shut the book again, and pressed it closed firmly.

  “Smell?” the elementalist asked as he closed the last few steps to the table. “I heard wailing, screams like straight from hell.”

  “Is that how you sense magic? You hear it?”

  Octavian looked back and forth between the two of us. “Is anyone going to fill me in? What’s happening?”

  “I told you I can smell magic, right?” I explained, still looking at Aaron. “He can feel magic, too, apparently, but he hears it. And this book smells—and sounded—like death and evil.”

  Aaron nodded sternly. “I can only hear magic when it’s strong, active, usually only when it has a direct intent, like an attack spell or a ward. Whatever that book is, the magic contained in its pages must be incredibly powerful. I’ve rarely ever heard something so intensely, the intends behind the spell so clear.” He shivered a bit at that last part, probably remembering whatever he heard.

  “Okay, so the book is super evil and we’re using it as bait for someone who already has an evil set of artifacts and plans to use them. Great,” Octavian mumbled, crossing his arms.

  “About that: what exactly is our plan?” I added. “Are we going to wait here until they show up?”

  “If they could somehow feel the trifecta call to them, they have definitely heard, or felt, you opening the book just now,” Aaron frowned. “But if they had to research the artifacts and find them the traditional way, we might be waiting weeks for them to realize that the book is not safe anymore.”

  We certainly didn’t have weeks for this plan to work. But I didn’t know what else we could do, and judging by the silence of the others, neither did they.

  We stared at the book, the awkward silence pressing down on us with disappointment, like it was judging us for coming up with such a foolish plan.

  “Wait, let me call Raina,” Octavian eventually said, breaking the silence with a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “And I’ll ask her to bring Ana, too.”

  “Ana?” Aaron frowned, then nodded knowingly. “I should’ve thought of her. If there’s anyone who can help us with this, it’s her. Dealing with evil spirits is like riding a bike for her.”

  Octavian chuckled, then fished his phone out of his pocket and called Raina, walking a few steps away to do so.

  Aaron looked at me, his eyes scanning me almost inquisitively. “So… are you two like… together?”

  The last bit of laughter got stuck in my throat. “What? No! We’re just… well… I don’t know,” I quietly admitted. It felt wrong to say were just friends, only working together. And I knew Octavian could hear me with his heightened senses, so I didn’t want to sound like I wasn’t interested. But I also couldn’t say I was interested, as I still felt more conflicted than anything else.

  “Hey, no judgment here,” Aaron chuckled, raising his hand hands in surrender. “I get it. You two seem to work well together, and from what I’ve heard and seen, he’s one of the good ones. Not like many other vampires. The way you two looked at each other, it seemed obvious, so I just had to ask.”

  It was not that obvious! …Or was it?

  My stomach was twisting again, my heartbeat quickening as I wondered once more what was going on between us. It was like that moment when I rushed into an enemy base with no idea of their defenses, constantly awaiting a shot in the back. The uncertainty was killing me, but I knew I couldn’t just ask.

  “Well, I guess,” I eventually answered, as Aaron was still staring at me expectantly.

  “You guess?” His eyebrow shot up again, a knowing grin on his face. “Well, let me put it this way. You want to take down the evil necromancer with him, then fall into his strong arms, look into his deep, smoldering eyes, and make out passionately after saving the world. Tell me if I’m wrong.”

  My mouth fell open and my cheeks burned, blushing more than they probably ever had before. My first instinct was to shout a firm “no!”, but no sound escaped my mouth. Immediately, mental images flared up in my mind, and I could almost feel his arms around me, his scent in my nose, his soft lips on mine. And just like that, my brain just stopped working and was unable to say the words I wanted to say.
<
br />   Aaron’s grin widened, his eyes sparkling with mischief but also with understanding. Before I could say something, anything to make me feel a little less embarrassed, Octavian dropped his phone.

  A moment later, he followed, falling to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

  A frown appeared on Aaron’s face as he looked over his shoulder to the source of the sound, then his smile was gone, too. “What the—"

  Before he could finish the sentence, he dropped, too.

  Cold terror shot through my body, every nerve in my body screaming for me to react.

  But I was frozen. My instincts drew a blank.

  My eyes darted around, scanning the warehouse, but there was no one here besides us.

  Whatever was happening, I couldn’t run from it.

  I couldn’t attack them.

  With a flick from the wrist, I pulled up a shield around me. The magical shimmer, formed like a egg-shaped bubble, wrapped around me and gave me a feeling of safety.

  Then it flared up. Black and red swirls spread on the barrier. Tendrils rose from the ground, ensaring it.

  My heart raced as I pumped more magic into the shield.

  Then a hooded figure drifted out of the shadows in the back of the hall. All I could see was the black cloak and a hint of a face.

  My jaw tightened and I strained to keep my barrier up. The figure came closer. Closer. I could almost see its face now.

  Then the mysterious thief—if that was indeed them—raised their hand, and the magic around me pressed harder.

  My barrier bloomed like hell itself was pushing against it. Black swirls covered the entire surface, red dots speckled throughout.

  I felt my strength fade. My vision blurred. I thought I could see them grin.

  But then there was just darkness.

  19

  „Hey wake up!“

  A world of colors, shapes, spooky characters, grim voices, and laughing books slowly faded from my mind. It felt like waking up from a dream, but it was a dream without any logic, on fast-forward, and then jumbled again to make sure I wouldn’t understand even the slightest bit.

  I forced my eyes open, while my brain was still catching up. A face was looking down at me, worry in her eyes. I looked at her, noticing her silver-blond hair, with colorful strands hanging down. A crease appeared on her forehead as she inspected me. “You okay?”

  Yep, definitely a human. A witch? My brain was still foggy, trying to make sense of the situation. “R… Raina?” I muttered eventually, my head spinning.

  “Yes! Are you okay? You all got hit by… something, a spell or a curse.”

  I shook my head and rubbed my eyes. Slowly, my brain started working normally again, my thoughts picking up the pace. I remembered talking with Octavian and Aaron about her plan. Then Octavian wanted to call Raina. Then… I talked to Aaron again?

  As I remembered the last bit of our conversation, embarrassment rushed through me again, and my cheeks reddened.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I quickly said. “Are the others okay?” With Raina’s help, I picked myself up, standing shakily and looking around. Octavian and Aaron were already up and talking, but they seemed quite upset and worried, as well. Ana was standing a little further away and looked around the warehouse.

  “They’re fine, just a little shaken, too,” Raina explained softly, her hand on my shoulder. “They are upset about a book, though, but they didn’t fill me in.”

  My head jerked toward the table. The book was gone. An icy shiver ran down my spine as I realized that most likely, the attacker had the book now, too.

  “Well, fuck,” I cursed, much to Raina’s surprise.

  She looked at me, worry in her eyes again. “That bad, huh?”

  “Yeah. In short, there is a big bad evil guy or something behind all the attacks. They stole a set of evil artifacts, and we used another evil artifact as bait. Not the smartest move, I know. It kinda backfired. They got the other artifact now, too.” I explained grimly.

  Raina’s expression turned bleaker with every sentence. “That’s a lot of evil. So what—"

  Then she was interrupted as Octavian, with Aaron close behind, stormed over to us. “Raven, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” I replied with a smile, trying to stop my body from swaying left and right. My head felt mostly fine, but my body was still a bit disoriented.

  Octavian looked at me a moment longer, his eyes wandering over me as if to check if I was really okay. His eyes were warm with relief, then they became worried again as he turned to Raina. “Please tell me you can track the book, Raina. We need to track the book, or we’re all doomed.”

  While Raina stammered that she couldn’t track the book if she had never seen it and didn’t have anything belonging to the book, I checked my phone.

  “What? No! There has to be a way to track it. I could draw you a picture of the book if that helps,” Octavian yelped, the anger in his voice mixed with desperation and pleading.

  “I’m sorry, I just can’t, I—" Raina stammered, clearly taking the vampire’s anger more personally than intended.

  “I can track it.”

  All heads suddenly turned to me. Even Ana, who’d been standing in the background until now, detached from the whole situation.

  “You what?” Octavian looked at me dumbfounded.

  “I thought you were a rogue,” Aaron added. “I didn’t know you had any training with spells.”

  “Yeah, I thought you could only do the blast-y thingy and the shield-y thingy,” Octavian babbled. His confusion alone was worth this whole mess.

  I grinned. “You people gotta think outside the box more.”

  Octavian’s face lit up with understanding and excitement, “Your dog! Your dog can track magical artifacts or something! Oh my God, that is so cute!”

  I stared at him for a moment, then erupted in laughter. “No, silly, it’s just a dog. And she’s cute without tracking abilities, thank you very much,” I scolded him with my finger waggling in front of his face. “No, I picked up a GPS tag in the morning and put it in the back of the book. Now I have its exact location on my phone, trackable directly on a map, way better than that old compass. Uhh, no offense, Raina,” I quickly added with an apologetic glance over to her.

  “You put… a GPS tracker… in the ancient tome?” Octavian sounded like he had to pull the thoughts from his head one by one.

  “Yeah, why?”

  Aaron had stared at me silently until now, then laughed uncontrollably. “The Ring needs someone like you and your kind of thinking. I’m sure we could open a spot for a rogue in our little council.”

  “First, let’s worry about the book, then we can discuss how awesome I am later,” I grinned. “It’s just outside the city, everyone ready to go?”

  I started walking toward the exit, looking at the others expectantly. “You coming?”

  Aaron, Octavian, and Raina exchanged confused glances, then nodded and followed me, quickly catching up. Ana followed, too, a few steps behind, and silently drifted behind us like a ghost. For a moment, I wondered if she was so good with spirits because she was one herself.

  Before I reached the door, Octavian quickly took the lead and opened it for me, with a playful bow and an inviting hand gesture.

  I shot him an annoyed glare, but held back my comment. He could play the gentleman at a ball, or on social occasions, but we were on a mission.

  After Ana finally walked through the door, everyone looked at Octavian expectantly, like somehow he was automatically taking the lead. Of course, he didn’t mind. He gestured toward the street where his car was parked. “Buck should still be here. He can drive us.”

  As the others went ahead, he walked up to me, hanging a bit behind. He looked at me concerned for a moment, then asked, “Are you sure you’re okay? You looked a little… spooked.”

  “Fine,” I sighed. “We got knocked out. Takes us a while longer to get back up for us non-vampires, y’know?
”

  He chuckled, but a hint of worry remained in his eyes, even as he smiled at me. It looked like he was about to say something else, but he just put his hand on my back for a moment, caressed it, then let his hand drop again.

  It was a strange feeling. No one had touched me with appreciation like him in a long time, and while it had felt uncomfortable at first, it didn’t anymore. Aaron’s question from before came to my mind again, about us saving the world and then making out. I tried to push the mental image from a mind, but a shiver of anticipation had already run through my body as I followed the others to the car.

  When we reached it, I saw another parked nearby. Raina was sitting in the front, while Aaron and Ana sat in the back seats in Octavian’s.

  Octavian opened the door in the front for me. “You got the map this time, you get to lead,” he grinned, a shimmer of pride in his eyes.

  I smiled, then got in awkwardly The SUV still a hassle to climb into. I nodded at Buck, which was my attempt at a respectful greeting, since I had no idea how to address him. I only knew him as Buck, but that must have been a nickname, and I didn’t feel comfortable using a nickname I haven’t earned the right to use yet.

  He responded similarly, and his smile reassured me. He hadn’t said more than a couple of words since I had know him, so I figured he might prefer a greeting like this, anyway.

  Looking down at my phone, I rotated and zoomed around on the map until I had a rough idea of our path. I sent a silent thank you to whoever was responsible for modern technology – the tracking compass was nice, but it didn’t show an exact location, and it certainly didn’t map out the complete route.

  “Uhm, so, first we need to get back on the big street… Oakhelm Street, I think, and then turn right after a half-mile or so,” I muttered while reading the map. “Should I just keep the directions coming or do you want to make your own way?”

  “No, that’s fine, thank you,” Buck answered with a smile, his voice soft and warm. “Just tell me where to turn in advance, and we’ll be there soon enough.”