I start to draw lines, connecting the dead until I have drawn a magic circle. When I’m finished, I push the map into the middle of the table. “It’s a magic circle. I’m not sure what kind, but this is clearly the start of it.”
“Jacob, do you recognize what the circle would be for?” Pepper asks.
Jacob takes the paper and examines it as I think about it. He runs his finger over the circle while mumbling something before shaking his head. “I… don’t know… I can’t imagine what would take this much area. Or this many sacrifices, but you’re right, it really does look like a circle of some kind.”
“What about a summoning circle?” Evan asks. “Is it anything like the ones you use to call for demons?”
“I don’t dabble with demons,” Jacob says as he looks over at me disapprovingly. Like dabbling with demons is a bad thing.
I look over at Iya who is sniffing Sam’s hair as Sam leans away from him and Havoc who is playing solitaire on my phone while looking ridiculously handsome.
“No. Havoc, can you think of anything?” I ask.
He quickly puts the phone down. “Hmm? What? Uh… No? Is it a necromancer’s circle, since it’s clear that a necromancer laid a trap on the bodies?”
I shake my head. “No. Necromancer circles are different,” I say. “But… I have an idea. Jacob, you’re well versed in magic, come here.”
“What are you doing?” Rehna asks.
“Shh, I need to concentrate. Jacob, come here,” I say.
He looks between Rehna and me nervously. She nods, so he kneels down next to me and looks at the map.
“I believe I’ve seen this spell before, but it was a long time ago, when I was a kid. I’m going to make you See it,” I say. “Then we can figure out if it’s the same.”
“Okay… I guess.”
I set my hand against his eyes before closing my own and sending the vision from my childhood into his mind.
I’m shaking as I stand over the body of the only person left that I cared about. Geoff is kneeled next to her, holding her as he sobs her name and rocks back and forth with her in his arms.
“We can save her,” I say.
“She is dead,” Geoff growls.
I shake my head. “But we can bring her back to life. I read it in your book.”
“That magic doesn’t work,” he says. “It was written by an insane man during his last days.”
“But… we could try,” I say.
He’s watching me now, making fear run through me, but she can’t be dead. She was the only one kind to me since I walked into hell.
“Get the book,” he says.
I race back for the house, leaving him next to her and slam through the door. In my hurry, I run into a servant who scurries back in fear. I mumble an apology as I rush up the stairs and into the library. I find the book hidden in the back, wound in leather. Hugging it to my chest, I run down the stairs and through the front door but stop when I see the scene before me.
Geoff has six servants lying upon the ground around the dead woman.
“Please, let me go,” a man cries.
“Don’t hurt my daughter,” a woman sobs, and I look over at her daughter, bound to the earth by magic.
The magic is stronger than any shackle. It forces her to do as Geoff wants. She’s younger than me and is sobbing as she reaches for her mother. Even though there is nothing physically binding them, Geoff’s magic keeps them apart.
“Come on now, Milliant. Give me the book.”
“N-No… we… we can’t use humans,” I say as my stomach tightens in fear. “W-What about the animals? There are plenty of animals.”
“It won’t work with them. Give me the book,” he growls as he yanks it from my hands.
I’m shaking as I look at the innocent eyes staring right at me. Like they know this was my idea. Like they know that they’re going to die because of me.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “Master Geoff, please, let them go. I will find you something else.”
Geoff swings around and hits me hard, causing me to slam against the ground. He turns back to the book which he begins to read from. He mumbles as he sets to work, placing the slaves in the spots he needs them before grabbing a woman. He drags her forward as a man screams for her.
I quickly look away from the scene as my body shakes. The cries of the man tear through my body as I try to choke back my own sobs.
I want to do something to save them, to use my magic for good. But I know he’ll kill me the moment I raise my hand against him. I am not strong enough. I’ll probably never be strong enough.
“Milliant, come here and hold her over the body until her blood drains completely,” he says.
I’m shaking where I stand, unable to go to him but too afraid to go away. “I-I refuse,” I say, wishing my words held more confidence.
His eyes are sharp as he turns them to me. He drops the woman to the ground and grabs me by the throat. “If you refuse to help, then you can take her place,” he growls as he throws me to the spot he’d pulled her from.
It feels like he places a weight on my back as it forces me to the ground. My hands slam down and begin to shake as they try to hold my face off the dirt. The weight is so heavy I can barely breathe beneath it.
He shoves the woman’s body out of the circle as he draws a symbol on the hands and feet of the person he’s trying to revive. Then he looks over at me. “This is your last chance. Die here with them or help me.”
The pressure on my back is gone as I look over at the men and women sobbing and pleading for their lives. I close my eyes and slowly stand up as I walk over to him. He grins as he looks down at me. I feel so traitorous going to him when I want to do anything but. Yet I know this is what I need to do if I want to live.
“I knew you would choose as much,” he says. “You might act like you care for others, but you only ever care about yourself.”
I know he’s right, so I take the book from him and read the spell. When I have the words correct, I pass the book back to him.
“Elvé vill niyon,” he says as he raises his hands in the air.
Slowly, I begin to say the words with him as he continues repeating them. I can see his magic touch the ground and race along it, reaching for the slaves as my magic wraps around his. The slaves scream in pain and terror. I clamp my eyes shut to get away from it as Geoff feasts on my magic. It feels like he’s pulling my magic dry, but I don’t open them. I hold my hands over my ears as I try to hide from their desperate screams.
The ground shakes as the noise becomes deafening. Magic is fluctuating around me, making it hard to breathe and think. Suddenly there’s a stillness in the air that is so eerie, I begin to wonder if we have killed all life instead of six innocent victims.
“My love!” Geoff says, his voice snapping me back to reality.
My eyes open as Valerie sits up. She looks around slowly, but it seems unnatural. It seems wrong. She doesn’t stop moving until her eyes lock with mine. Then she lunges forward, grabbing me as she tears me to the ground and begins clawing at my chest, her nails ripping at my shirt and skin. That’s when I realize that I have truly lost the only one I cared for.
I yank away from the memory and look over at Jacob who is looking at me with dread.
“What is it?” Rehna asks.
“A spell… to bring the dead back to life,” Jacob whispers.
“Like a necromancer’s spell?” Evan asks.
“No… there were no necromancers involved. Just Miles and the dark mage Geoff Valvon,” he says.
Everyone looks startled. There isn’t a person in the room who hasn’t heard of Geoff. The man who rose in power by using his dark magic.
“Miles, you associated with the dark mage Geoff?” Aiden says as his eyes search mine.
No one wants to admit to being involved with such a man. “I was his slave for many years,” I admit. “Havoc was his demon. That man taught me everything about magic.”
“Are y
ou a dark mage?” Pepper asks uncertainly.
“No… I was able to pull my magic back from the darkness before it consumed me,” I say, but I can tell that everyone is now looking at me differently. Suddenly, I’m someone to be taken seriously. Someone to watch carefully. And not just the man who rode up on a sacred forest spirit and got chastised about it.
“So explain the spell to us,” Rehna says.
I really don’t want to, but I know that in order to understand what’s happening, I have to. “A woman we both deeply cared for passed away, and I had read about how to revive a recently deceased human. It was marked as the ravings of a madman because everyone knew you couldn’t bring a functioning human back to life. Of course, a necromancer can bring a human back that it can control, but even that won’t last long. It would constantly drain a necromancer’s power, and the human in question wouldn’t be a human. They usually don’t retain their memories or any process of thought beyond what the necromancer would give it. But this book promised to bring a human back from the dead while retaining all function, all memory. The human wouldn’t be connected to the mage that brought it back to life. It would be able to live freely,” I say. “So we tried it. And it did succeed… to an extent.
“The moment she saw me, she tried to kill me. It didn’t matter to her that she once felt love and affection for me, all she cared about was my magic. She wanted to feed on it. She tried to dig my heart from my chest with her nails so she could eat it. Geoff saved me from her since he’d put too much time into me to allow her to kill me just like that. We thought her attacking me was just some crazy thought she had after coming back. Once we got her calmed down, we were convinced it had worked perfectly. She spoke like her, acted like her, and knew stuff only she would know, yet she was so… wrong. She was driven by power and would achieve it by tearing out the hearts of those with magic. But it wasn’t just… something to eat; every heart she ate made her more powerful. The first heart she ate was that of a witch and suddenly, she could have power over potions. She just fed on magic, all the while, gaining their abilities, their magic,” I say. “She wasn’t right. She wasn’t natural. I was like thirteen at the time, but I knew something wasn’t right.”
“What happened to her?” Rehna asks.
It was such a dark time in my past that it’s hard to talk about. “She… she killed a woman she cared deeply about. When I found her, she was covered in her blood, sobbing and pleading with me to end her life. It was the first time I’d seen her show remorse for what she’d done, and I knew it needed to end. So… I killed her.”
“Who do you think they brought back this time?” Jacob asks. He’s been writing stuff down as I talk, probably his headmaster side taking over.
“Oh, that one’s easy. They brought Geoff back,” I say, not wanting to admit it, but knowing it to be true.
Everyone’s attention is suddenly on me as my words sink into their minds. The expressions of unease and fear tell me that they understand how serious this is.
“But he’s been dead hundreds of years,” Jacob says. “You two struggled to bring back a woman whose body wasn’t yet cold. And Geoff was a very powerful mage.”
I had considered that too. “Yes… I know. But things can be different. They could’ve had more mages, it could’ve been the power they forced into it. If there was a mage at each of the victims’ homes pouring magic into this, can you imagine the strength they would have? And then we have the question of when a person dies, where does their magic go? Does it go with them? Or does it stay with the body? If Geoff’s magic stayed with his body, it could’ve helped the spell.”
“So, you’re saying the strongest mage to ever walk this earth, is walking it again but this time, he’s feeding off the magic of others, making him even more powerful?” Pepper asks.
“Yes.”
The feeling of unease moves across the room.
“I don’t think any of this is possible,” Johnson says. “You can’t bring a man back from the dead, one who has been dead two-hundred years.”
Jacob nods slowly. “Yes, well… an hour ago, I thought you couldn’t bring one back from the dead that had been dead an hour, so who knows what is possible.”
Rehna leans forward, looking very thoughtful. “So, say we go with the mindset that Geoff is back from the dead, what is next?”
“Well, he’ll likely want revenge for his death,” I say with a grimace.
“Who killed him?” Aiden asks.
“A group of us,” I say.
“How?” Pepper asks in surprise.
I grimace at the memory. “Um… let’s just say, barely.”
“You nearly got everyone killed that day,” Havoc says as he leans back in his chair.
“Yes, I did.” It was a horrible day, but at least one good thing came from it. “So if Geoff has been brought back the same way, we know he’ll start targeting powerful people. It’s probably why they were trying to capture Badrick. Imagine the old magic a forest spirit has,how powerful that would be?”
“So how do we find him?” Rehna asks.
I shake my head because she doesn’t seem to understand the situation. “We don’t even need to look. Right in this room, are the six most powerful entities in the area. He’s going to find you. Each one of you. And try to kill you.” I’m not sure anyone understands the danger we’re in.
“What about the book?” Johnson asks. “Can we figure out who would have it in their possession? Were there limited copies of it?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I can’t imagine too many would’ve had access to the book,” I say.
“Do you remember the author?” Jacob asks.
I can’t even remember what I ate for breakfast and they want me to remember a name from hundreds of years ago? “Oh man… let me think about that. Hmm… Hans… something.”
Jacob taps his finger on the table as he thinks for a moment. “Hans Teller?”
I nod. “Yes, that was it.”
“In his prime, he was very famous for his studies and spells but as he got older, he began to lose his mind. His last book was never published. It was his only book where he used dark magic.”
“Then I guess I own it,” I say. “But seeing as someone’s using it, it’s probably gone. And his body must be gone too. Since only those of us who were there that day know where both the book and the body are, we have an idea of who is involved.”
“Who was with you?” Johnson asks.
“Well, it was me, Havoc, Rehna, Evan, Marco, Harvor, Lanni, and Nicolas,” I say.
Everyone looks at Evan and Rehna.
“Well, they weren’t hard to find,” Sam says as he pulls out a notebook and writes the names down.
“Do you need help?” Iya asks as he towers over him.
Sam shifts uneasily in his chair. “Um… no, just writing the names down,” he says.
“I’ll hold your paper for you,” Iya decides as he reaches for the paper, but before he can touch it, Sam slides it out of his reach.
“I’m fine. Thanks,” Sam says, but Iya won’t be deterred.
“So, what about the others?” Johnson asks.
“Harvor and Nicolas have passed on,” Rehna says. “I spoke to Lanni not long ago, but I haven’t heard from Marco in about a hundred years. Is he still alive?”
“He’s alive… but where he’s at, I have no idea. I’ll ask around,” I say. “I’ll go check the gravesite and books while we figure that out.”
Chapter Eleven
“So?” Havoc asks as I park the truck just outside of my café and turn it off.
I swallow a lump in my throat and look over at him. “I have to see.”
Havoc has to understand my panic, but it seems like he doesn’t want me to go. “Tonight? It’s already dark.”
“I know, but I have to see,” I say as I get out of the truck. “Badrick, I’m going to go check the grave. I’ll be back by morning.”
“Would you like me to go with you?” Badrick asks a
s he hops out of the truck.
“No, I’ll be fine, but thanks,” I say. “Ask Yoko to get you some food.”
“Perhaps more coffee,” he says excitedly.
He already harassed Rehna until she gave him a pot, he really doesn’t need more. “No… I think you’ve had enough coffee.”
“No, absolutely not enough,” he says as he heads for the door.
Leaving him to feed his caffeine addiction, I get into the car while Havoc gets into the passenger seat.
“Man, I’m exhausted. I believe we got a total of three hours of sleep last night,” he says as he stretches. I wish he wouldn’t have brought it up because it reminds me just how tired I am.
“Take a nap. I’ll drive us there, and you can drive us home,” I say.
“I think I can handle that.” He puts the seat back and closes his eyes.
He twitches around for a bit like he has fleas chewing on his ass, and I honestly have no idea how he plans to fall asleep.
“This is uncomfortable,” he decides.
His solution seems to be shifting into a raven before walking over to me and stuffing his head in my hoodie pocket. I watch him in disbelief as he crawls inside. He barely fits, and his talons are sticking out, so I poke one of them. His talons clench onto my finger so tightly, I’m surprised they don’t pierce my skin.
***
It takes me four hours to get there and the entire time, I can’t stop thinking about Geoff. Of all of the years I have lived, the years I spent with him still haunt me the most.
And now he’s back and more powerful?
I feel close to having an anxiety attack by the time I reach the woods I buried him in. It feels like something is trying to crush my stomach. What’s funny is that it’s been so many years since his death, and still, he causes so many emotions to swirl inside me.
Happy Endings Page 13