The Eighth Mage

by Tamara Geraeds

  “Now you know how it is supposed to be,” the fairy says. “And I have seen the love in your memories. Together, we can make this world a better place.”

  When I smile back at her, the words flow out of my mouth on their own. “And we will.”

  Before we discuss our plan to take on the marodium, the iele want to see their bell. I lead them upstairs and show them the hidden room. I’m surprised myself that I don’t even hesitate. It hasn’t been easy for me to trust people since two of my so-called best friends betrayed me, but we’ve also met a lot of great people, like Ginda and Chloe and Dylan. So maybe I’m thawing a bit again. Besides, these iele can’t be bad, or they would never have found Darkwood Manor or have been able to cross the salt lines.

  Vicky apparates into the secret room with a ball of herbs in her hands. She gives it to me and sets up four candles, one in each corner. The iele watch her with interest, floating an inch above the floorboards.

  For once, there’s no need to check Dad’s notebook for the instructions. I’ve cast this spell so many times that I know it by heart.

  I draw a circle on the ceiling with a pentagram inside it.

  Vicky hands me another candle which I use to melt the circle above our heads. Soon, the substance starts dripping. It forms a second circle on the floor. When it’s complete, I lower the candle and say the words.

  “Shadows high and shadows low,

  show me what I do not know.

  Bring in sight what’s hidden here.

  Let the unseen reappear.”

  Slowly, the darkness inside the room disappears. The shadows stretch and get lighter. They pull away the ivy that covers the small window. Dust vanishes, and as the shadows disappear, they reveal the porthole that leads to the silver mine.

  The candles in the corners are blown out, and Vicky lights them again.

  The iele float closer, and I shake my head. “Not yet. There’s a double protection on the bell.”

  They nod approvingly and float back to the doorway.

  I repeat the spell, and a large doll is revealed in the middle of the room. A matryoshka. The yellow ‘laser beam’ scans me and Vicky and explodes into harmless dots of light when it senses our good intentions. More beams follow as I take smaller dolls out of the biggest one. When I open the last one, I look over my shoulder. The yellow beam scans the three fairies in the doorway. They are frozen in place, just like we were when it scanned us. There’s surprise on their faces.

  The light moves over them, once, twice. I’m starting to wonder if they will pass this ‘test’. Was I wrong to trust them? Beside me, I see Vicky reaching for the knife in her boot. But then, the beam goes up in sparkles, and the iele can move again.

  Vicky straightens up, and the iele shake the weird feeling off. The leader draws closer when I lift the Bell of Izme from the doll. “You have protected it well.”

  “Actually, my father did that before he was killed. I just kept it in place.”

  The leader’s face goes dark when I mention Dad. I can’t blame her. He stole the bell from them, after all. But when I hold it up, to show her that it’s intact, the darkness trickles from her cheeks. She holds out her hands. “Can I hold it for a second?”

  “Of course.” I hand it to her gently, and she studies it from all sides. My gaze is drawn to it too. The mesmerizing effects of it never cease to amaze me: the sparkling white marble the outside is made of, the beautiful branches, moons and stars carved into it that seem so real. I could describe every detail of it, and you still wouldn’t be able to grasp the beauty of it.

  With a nod, the iele leader gives it back. “Very well. I see that it’s in good hands here.”

  “It is.” I gesture at the porthole, and they follow me there. “I need to make sure the portal remains closed. You can watch, if you want.”

  Vicky has joined us at the porthole, and the others gather around us, weapons drawn.

  Vicky and I peer through the round window. The secret tunnel is open, as always these days, and the birdcage that opens it hangs still. There’s no one in sight.

  “I think we’re good,” Vicky says, and she unlocks the porthole.

  I step through first and scan the secret tunnel again. The blackness at the end of it pulses wildly.

  When Vicky joins me, she places a hand on my arm. “That doesn’t look good.”

  I wrap my fingers around the bell tighter. “But it’s not open.”

  When she takes a step closer to the portal, I grab her and pull her back. “Don’t.”

  She frees her hand gently. “It’s closed, babe.”

  “It could be a trick,” I say, tilting my head to study every inch of the black mass. “I nearly lost you when Beelzebub came through. I’m not taking any more risks.”

  “You saw Beelzebub?” The voice that speaks up is sweet, but there’s a hint of anger and panic underneath it.

  When I turn toward the sound, I find one of the other two iele staring at me. It’s the first time since they arrived that she has spoken, and I can tell this surprises the leader as much as me.

  “You defeated him?” she asks now, her gray hair floating up behind her.

  “Not yet, but we drove him away,” I answer.

  Her eyes grow wide, and she drifts toward me. Her hand goes up to my cheek, and warmth floods through it. Her gaze grows soft. “I owe you an apology.”

  I frown. “What for?”

  “For not believing in you.” She lowers her chin and floats a bit further down. “To be honest, I envied you. I never understood why the chosen one was a human. Why God hadn’t chosen one of us. But now I see it. You are special, Dante. You can change the world without help, if you need to.”

  I give her a small bow. “I’m not sure about that, but thank you for your kind words.”

  “Is this why you didn’t speak before?” Vicky asks.

  The iele goes a bit paler than she already was. “It is. And I am sorry. It was childish of me. Please forgive me.”

  “You are forgiven,” Vicky and I say at the same time, and we exchange a small smile.

  “Thank you.” She retreats to the side of her leader.

  The iele on the right bows too. “I apologize too. I did not want to ask for your assistance. But I see now that there is no shame in seeking help.”

  “There certainly isn’t,” I confirm.

  Now that the air has been cleared, I turn back to the portal and start ringing the bell.

  Then I stop and nearly drop it. I inch closer to the black void, narrowing my eyes. I turn my head left and right, but that doesn’t change what I’m seeing. I press the bell into Vicky’s hands and take another step. I wet my lips before saying the name that keeps swimming through my head. “Dad?”

  CHAPTER 26

  “Dante?” The voice is distant and hoarse, but it’s definitely Dad’s. “I can’t see. I got lost.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll get you out.”

  “Where am I? Dante, can you hear me?” He sounds on the verge of a panic.

  Instinctively, I reach out to the vague face. “I’m right here, Dad. Give me your hand.”

  He blinks and turns his head in all directions. “I’m stuck. I can barely move.”

  My own hand is inches from the pulsing void. I know I shouldn’t stick it in, but the urge to do so grows stronger every second. “Keep trying. Hold out your hand, and I will pull you out.”

  An arm bursts through the portal. It’s covered in scratches and bruises, and dark mud crawls over it.

  I jump back and hold out my arm to stop Taylar, who hurries to my side to help. Slowly, I step further back until the hand can no longer touch us.

  “What is it?” Taylar asks. “Don’t you want to free John?”

  I shake my head and take the bell back from Vicky. “That… is not my father.”

  The young ghost lowers his shield a bit and leans forward. “Are you sure?”

  I point at
the hand sticking out of the darkness. “Look at all the injuries.” I turn to the others behind us and lower my voice. “Remember when we saw him recently? He looked bad, sure, fragile and pale, because he starved to death, but he wasn’t beaten up. His arms were thin, but there were no cuts or bruises on them. Even if someone beat him up now, the injuries wouldn’t stick because he’s dead. His body will always return to the state it was in when he died, like yours do.”

  Anger falls over Jeep’s face. “It’s a trick.”

  I hold up the bell. “Let’s get rid of it.”

  Maël points her staff at the portal. “I could try to freeze it in time. You can pull it out, find out who or what it is.”

  “No,” I say without hesitation. “We’re not wasting our time on this thing. There’s no need for us to know what it is. We already know what it wants and whom it was sent by. That’s enough. Pulling it into the tunnel will only make it more difficult to defeat.”

  D’Maeo gives me his fatherly smile. “That’s a good decision.”

  The iele remain silent while Jeep and Kessley hold up their thumbs.

  It’s when I turn back to the portal that everything suddenly goes haywire.

  A shriek of horror echoes through the secret tunnel. A figure, moving so fast it’s no more than a blur, shoots past all of us before we realize what’s happening. It dives straight for the hand sticking out of the portal, letting out a sort of howl of sorrow. It’s not until it stands still that I recognize it.

  “NO!” I stagger forward. “Mom, don’t! It’s not him!”

  “John!” she wails, deaf to my warning. “John!”

  She reaches out to him, and no matter how big my strides are, I know I’ll be too late. And I can’t help but think that by now her luck will have run out. Trevor no longer watches over her, and Satan has given the order to use Mom to get to me.

  My Shield, however, reacts fast as lightning. Before I’ve even put one foot in front of the other, my six ghosts apparate next to her. Some of them land in the same place, but that doesn’t slow them down one bit. They all grab Mom and pull her back. Or, they try to. But she has grabbed onto the hand. And what’s worse, the hand has grabbed onto her too.

  D’Maeo tears the fingers loose one by one while Vicky tries to catch Mom’s eyes. “Listen to me, Susan,” she says, raising her voice to be heard above Mom’s yelling and ‘Dad’s’ pleas to free him. “This is not John.”

  When she doesn’t respond, Vicky shoots me a worried look over her shoulder.

  “Maybe we can try holy water again,” Jeep suggests.

  “We can’t,” Taylar answers, using his shield to try and push the imitation of Dad further back. “I used the last of it on Beelzebub.”

  “Can’t you apparate out of here and take Mom with you?” I yell.

  D’Maeo shakes his head. “We might accidentally take the creature inside the portal with us too, since it’s holding on to her.”

  I curse and lift my hands in desperation. What are we going to do?

  A warm breeze hits my neck, and the leader of the iele gently pushes me aside. “Let us help you.”

  I can only nod.

  The last of the iele to pass me points at the bell. “Start ringing it.”

  “Okay,” I mumble, a little intimidated by their slowly growing forms.

  My hands starts moving again. The sound that the Bell of Izme makes does not reach my ears, but I know it is working, because the darkness around ‘Dad’s’ face starts to close. I see his hand wrapping tighter around Mom’s and pray for her safety. Please don’t take her away from me again. Please, please, please.

  The iele come to a halt behind my Shield. They’ve grown so much that their heads touch the ceiling. But this time, they have not gone dark. They are still light and beautiful, and I can feel their comfortable warmth spreading through the tunnel. Their long, white dresses move as much as their gray hair does. They reach out to each other to form a line. Then they tilt back their heads and close their eyes. A sort of low humming rises from their lips. It’s a mesmerizing melody that reverberates through every bone in my body. Everyone is affected by it. Movements are growing softer, sounds fainter. The fear and anger inside me are dialed down.

  All heads turn to the three fairies, even Mom’s. The humming gets louder. Any other sound would be deafening, but this… it’s wonderful. It’s like floating on your back in a babbling brook with the sun shining on your face and no cares in the world.

  I blink when something shifts in the air. An energy field detaches itself from the three women and sweeps toward the portal. When it hits its target, the dark void wobbles. It turns lighter, and the hand opens.

  Immediately, my Shield pulls Mom out of its reach.

  That wakes her from her daze. She kicks and fights like a cornered cat. “Let me go! John, hold on!”

  I step aside as they pull her back to the entrance of the tunnel. “Take her back to the mansion and try to calm her down. In the meantime, I’ll close the portal.”

  Automatically, my hand starts to shake more aggressively. The iele push out another burst of energy. The hand shudders, the fingers curl up as if the creature is in pain. Slowly, it starts to pull back. The face is completely covered in black mud again, although it looks more like normal mud now. It still pulses, but slower.

  The iele’s long locks float forward as if to touch the hand, and it pulls back quickly.

  When the gap closes, my arm stops moving, and the iele cease their humming. The silence that follows is heavy, and for a moment, I can’t move. I’m not sure what happened.

  When the iele shrink back to their normal size and turn to face me, a question rolls from my tongue. “What did you hit it with?”

  All three of them smile at me sweetly. “With positive energy,” the leader says.

  “Or love, if you want to be specific,” the one to her right adds.

  I clutch the bell to my chest and bow. “Thank you so much for your help… eh…” I suddenly realize we’ve never been properly introduced, “… I don’t even know your names.”

  The leader gestures to the entrance of the tunnel and only responds when we’re all back in the secret room with the porthole closed firmly behind us. “We cannot give you our true names, we never do, but you can call us Soimane, Sfinte and Mandre.”

  I bow again, which seems to please them.

  “Give me a minute to hide the bell again. I’ll see you downstairs.”

  They leave, and I take my time casting the spell to hide the porthole and the bell. I can barely wrap my head around what just happened. I almost lost Mom again. If the iele hadn’t been here, I probably would have. And I can’t believe she would survive another kidnapping or curse. She’s been so lucky up till now, and that luck has to run out sometime. We need to take matters into our own hands, and soon.

  When I close the cupboard that leads to the secret room, a hand on my shoulder startles me.

  “It’s just me,” Mom says when I whirl around with a lightning bolt in my hand.

  I breathe out slowly to calm down my heartbeat. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  “Sorry.” She doesn’t even scold me for cursing. “I…” She hesitates. Her eyes flit from my face to the secret door. “I wanted to apologize.”

  “What? Why?”

  “For getting myself into trouble. Again.” She breathes out heavily. “I should’ve thought twice before throwing myself at that… abomination.”

  “You couldn’t have―”

  “No,” she interrupts me, “I could have known. I should know better. I should think before I act. Isn’t that what I always taught you?”

  “It is, but I understand. Everyone does.”

  “Really?” Her shoulders sag. “Because we can’t afford to make mistakes like this.”

  “Everyone makes mistakes, Mom. Even the Devil himself.”

  She looks so small and sad that I wrap my arms around her an
d pull her close.

  She sobs, and I rub her back.

  “I’ve blamed John for our troubles for so long. I was so angry. And then it turned out that it wasn’t his fault. He was sucked into this horrible battle, just like you were, and all he wanted was to protect us. Now I feel guilty for ever doubting him. He was my tower of strength, and I dropped him like a rock. And when I saw him again, all of my feelings for him came rushing back. I couldn’t think straight anymore.”

  “I understand, Mom. Anyone would’ve done the same.”

  She frees herself to look at me. “You didn’t run to him.”

  I shrug. “It’s different for me. I saw him recently, and I’ve had a piece of him with me since this all started.” I pull out Dad’s notebook and stroke the cover.

  Mom places her hand on mine. “You are so much like him, you know that?”

  “I am?”

  “You have his eyes, his strong will, and his urge to protect others.” She follows the side of my hand with her finger. “Even your hands are the same. Strong, but soft.” She moves her hand to my chest. “Like your heart.”

  “Thanks, Mom, but I didn’t inherit all of that just from him. You have the same traits.”

  She encompasses my face with her hands. “I’m proud of you both. Now, let’s go put those wonderful traits of ours to good use.”

  CHAPTER 27

  When we get back to the kitchen, there’s no trace of the iele.

  “They went home,” D’Maeo answers my stunned stare. “Said they would be back tomorrow.”