by Jayne Faith
“Let’s put the whip aside for a minute and just practice,” he said.
I nodded and laid the length of the weapon over a chair. Instead of reaching downward for earth magic, I aimed my senses inward to a point just above my belly button and focused on the heat generated by my own body. There were other ways to summon fire magic, but this was the method that had usually worked for me. It took almost a full minute before I felt the telltale spark—I was definitely rusty with this element. Heat grew as I mentally fanned it outward from my middle and into my limbs.
My pulse jumped at the unfamiliar feeling. Earth magic was neutral to cool in temperature, and I’d forgotten about the prickly sensation of the hottest magical element.
“Okay, form a flame,” he said, prompting me to run through the most basic fire magic exercise.
I raised my right hand and directed the flow of magic to that area. Already sweating with the effort, I watched as a dime-sized red ball illuminated and hovered above my extended index finger.
Waiting until it I was sure I could keep it steady, I arced my arm downward and aimed my index finger at the patio we stood on. A mental push sent the tiny red orb to the ground with a pop like a firecracker. The fire magic hit the concrete in a burst of heat and light and then extinguished, leaving a smudge of black ash. A whiff of smoke drifted to my nose, sweet with a metallic edge.
It was a pretty weak-ass display, but I was just happy I’d managed it without burning my hand or setting anything ablaze.
I looked up at Damien to gauge his reaction.
“We can work with that,” he said, nodding slowly. “You played it very safe, though. You have the capacity to pull a lot more fire.”
“Yeah, and I have the scars to prove it.” I held up my right hand and fluttered my fingers.
I didn’t actually have scars, or if I did they were faint, but the memory of fire magic blisters along my index finger was still vivid enough, even so many years later. Fire magic was the second easiest to access after earth, but it was also the most dangerous to the crafter—and to any flammable objects nearby.
For the next hour, he coached me while I attempted to draw earth and fire simultaneously and send the magic through the whip. I could see why he wanted me to command more than one element. Even a tiny addition of fire magic made the whip tenfold more responsive in my hand. It was like the difference between shooting a gun at sounds with my eyes closed and firing with the lights blazing with the aid of a laser sight.
But it took its toll. Ten minutes in and sweat was dripping down my temples. At the end of the hour, I had to sit down.
“Now that you’re using magic so much more, you need to find a healer,” Damien said. “Occasional magical exhaustion isn’t dangerous, but you don’t want to push it too far.”
I ran my hand down my arm as the vague chill of magical drain set in. I frowned. “I completely forgot about the brain damage aspect of overuse. It’s never been an issue for me.”
Crafters who used magic heavily or on a daily basis needed frequent healing sessions to ward off its detrimental effects.
A reaper eating my soul and magical exhaustion rotting my brain. Well, at least there was an easy solution for one of those problems. I’d ask Deb for a referral.
Damien had been lounging in one of the patio chairs with his hands clasped behind his head while I rested for a few minutes. His eyes were closed, his face tilted toward the sun. Just as I felt the crawling tingle of nearby Rip spawn, his eyes popped open and he straightened.
My right hand reflexively moved to my stun gun, and I rose to my feet.
“Single minor demon,” he said, also standing.
Scanning the sky, I spotted a bat-like shape flapping toward us. “Yeah, I feel that, too. I think I know this demon.”
Damien flicked a quick glance at me, and my skin prickled as he drew magic. The green glow of earth energy surrounded his right hand. I was too tired to summon much elemental energy, but I didn’t think I needed it.
“Don’t do anything just yet,” I said.
We watched the demon alight in the maple that stood near the sidewalk on the other side of my fence. The tree was large enough to send boughs sprawling into the space above my yard. Like some sort of prehistoric raven, the demon perched on a branch and began preening.
Allowing my eyes to unfocus, I reached outward toward the creature.
“I don’t think it’s going to hurt us,” I said. My voice sounded far away as I slipped more fully into a trance-like focus. “But if it tries to take flight, trap it in a bubble of earth magic.”
“Trying to make friends?” I heard Damien ask, but my focus was already too deep to respond.
I found the thread of connection stretching between me and the minor demon like an invisible wire and sent my focus through it. Swaying on my feet, I probed for the energetic throbbing swirl at the other end—the creature’s mind. My scalp crawled as I pushed inside.
This demon felt familiar, somehow, like the one I’d brought home from Jen’s. It wasn’t the same one. I’d learned to recognize some of the tiny things that differentiated one creature from another.
The demon began to struggle as I probed deeper, and I sensed its panic just before it took flight. Damien caught it in an orb of glowing green.
“Don’t bring it any closer,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. Since I’d come back from the dead, demons were wary of me, and I didn’t want it to freak out.
I sank into the trance, allowing my awareness to flow into the creature’s mind while another part of my consciousness pictured Jennifer’s house and searched the demon’s memory for the areas that rang with a similar vibration.
Random images and sensations whirled through my senses—trees, dark sky, the feel of wind over leathery wings. Then a scene settled out of the chaos. It was the path behind Jennifer’s house and along it moved a figure bathed in blood-red magic. A man, the same one as before. My breath caught in my throat as I watched from the demon’s vantage point in a tree.
Other minor demons were nearby, and as the man walked, they called out to him. Not the usual ear-bleeding screams and screeches, but soft clucks and caws. He looked up in acknowledgment, and I froze as I saw his face full on. His features were angular, the maroon magic making him look almost alien. I locked onto every detail, trying to commit each to memory. There was no scrying mirror in his hand, but that didn’t necessarily mean he hadn’t taken it.
My curiosity rose as I remembered what Johnny had said and wondered what this man and I could have in common. Since I knew what the man looked like, how he moved, maybe I could probe—
My phone jangled and vibrated on the glass table, jolting me out of my link with the demon.
I blew out a harsh puff of air through clenched teeth, annoyed at the interruption.
Scooping up my phone, I noted Deb’s name on the caller I.D. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Oh, god,” Deb’s voice was trembling and airy, as if she couldn’t catch her breath. “Amanda is dead. She’s dead, Ella. Oh my god.”
“Where are you?” I demanded, already in motion. I pinned my phone between my ear and shoulder so I could coil up my whip. It tingled with a small current of residual magic.
“Amanda’s house. I brought Roxanne to do some training. I think the killer is the same person who was at Jennifer’s.” Deb ended with a little sob.
The man I’d just seen through the demon’s eyes?
Damn, I hoped Roxanne didn’t see anything. She was just a kid, only fourteen. I waved urgently at Damien. He released his magic, and the orb holding the demon dissolved. He followed me into the house as the creature flapped away.
“Get back in your car,” I said into the phone. “Lock the car doors and send me the address.”
“Okay,” Deb said, sounding lost and miserable. “I’m going to have to tell the other witches.”
I paused for a split second. “Is Amanda part of your group that’s trying to get into Lynnette Le
blanc’s coven?”
“Yeah.”
Jennifer was, too. Two witches vying for the same coven attacked by the same person? I didn’t believe in coincidences.
“Hold tight, Deb. Damien and I will be right there,” I said and disconnected the call.
I hadn’t told Damien about Jennifer’s house, the blood-red magic, or the person—the killer—out there who had something in common with me.
I started filling him in as I called Loki inside, locked up, and grabbed my keys. I strapped my whip onto my belt as we headed down the front walk.
“I’ll drive us.” He interrupted me, angling toward his late-model Lexus parked on the corner.
I nodded and followed him to his car.
As I slid into the luxurious leather seat, I vaguely noted the odd flu-like feeling in my body. I was chilly from the drain of using magic but also still sweaty from slinging fire energy. My necro-vision was fading in and out of my right eye. All of that, combined with the fact that I probably needed to eat something, gave me a tilted, off-balance sensation. I used my phone to send the address Deb texted me to the car’s navigation system.
“I want to know more about this maroon magic,” Damien said. He pulled up to a stop at a red light and turned his head to give me a long, piercing stare that roamed the air, surrounding me as if examining my aura.
“You can’t see it, can you?” I asked. I held up my arm and saw a weak halo of the magic, like a bloody mist hovering over my skin.
“No, and that bothers me.”
At his high level of magical aptitude, Damien could do and sense things that lower-ability crafters couldn’t. He was also extremely knowledgeable on the topic of magic, having grown up in a family of mages and possessing two degrees in Magical Studies. I suspected he didn’t encounter too many things in the supernatural realm that were new to him. I had to admit it bothered me, too, that he couldn’t see the blood-red magic.
I could almost see the gears spinning in his mind as he drove.
“Theories? Hypotheses? Wild speculations?” I prodded.
His jaw muscles flexed a couple of times before he responded. “We’re getting close to Samhain.”
I looked at him askance, though he didn’t see because his eyes were on the road. “Halloween? What’s that got to do with anything?”
“It’s not the same as Halloween,” he said. “In the pagan calendar it’s the final harvest, the point in the year that marks the beginning of the dark half of the year. It’s a festival of the dead. It’s also the time that the veil between the living and the dead is the thinnest.”
His words fell heavily between us, and my heart seemed to also drop in my chest.
“You think the killer is carrying out some sort of black ritual connected to Samhain?”
“Not necessarily. But this blood-colored magic—I don’t know, maybe it has something to do with the fact that we’re already within the lunar cycle that leads up to Samhain. Maybe it’s something that emerges this time of year. Lots of strange things can happen when the veil thins.”
He glanced over his shoulder into the backseat, where he’d tossed his backpack with his ever-present notebook.
“It’s not just the final harvest of the year, which makes it sound relatively benign,” he said, shifting into professor mode. “It’s also the final slaughter. Originally that was the final slaughter of livestock before winter. Historically, black magic practitioners and dark arts worshippers have taken some latitude with the interpretation. This year Samhain falls on a new moon—a dark moon.”
“So this is a special year for the dark arts?”
“Yeah, and not just symbolically,” he said. “There are a lot of events converging on that date this year which will undoubtedly boost certain magical energies. I have some experiments planned to quantify it, actually.”
Damien turned onto a residential street in the Boise Bench—a low plateau in the south-central area of the city that in some spots overlooked the river and valley. In other places the Bench was a mixed area of refurbished homes interspersed with overgrown ramshackle houses that had fallen into disrepair. This street had more of the latter, though the address Deb had given me turned out to be a cute little yellow cottage with a cobalt blue door and a bed of roses next to the front porch. The door was ajar about half a foot but revealed only a vertical slice of darkness within. A faint trace of a still-intact ward arced around the foundation of the house. Blood-red magic trailed up the front walk.
Deb’s Honda was parked next to the mailbox, her face pale and stricken behind the windshield. Roxanne sat next to her in the passenger seat with the hood of her sweatshirt pulled up and her eyes wide.
When we parked, their doors swung open. I stepped out of the Lexus, and Roxanne rushed to me and wordlessly threw her thin arms around my waist. I touched her chin, tipping her face up so I could look in her eyes. She looked alarmed but not shocked. I didn’t think she’d seen anything that would give her nightmares.
“You okay?” I asked, squeezing Roxanne’s shoulders and wincing against the sensation in my skull. The middle of my forehead was thumping like a cadre of bass drums in a homecoming marching band. Around the edges of my vision, the shadows danced in a blurring frenzy.
She nodded and stepped back, turning to Deb.
“I just called 9-911,” Deb said. The emergency number for Supernatural Crimes. That meant she’d seen or sensed something inside that made her believe magic was involved. Her eyes slid toward the front door, and her face pinched in distress. “Better get in there if you want a look before they arrive.”
The upper lid of my necro-vision eye was twitching, and my stomach was rolling around like a rock tumbler. I took a slow breath in through my nose, trying to steady myself as I jogged up to the front door. I wasn’t particularly nervous about seeing a corpse—no, there was something else going on within me that had me much more on edge. A strange sense of anticipation flooded through me like a shock of adrenaline.
I used my elbow to bump the cobalt door open wider, careful not to leave fingerprints on anything.
In the dimly lit little entry, I could see the trail of maroon magic. My forehead thumped so hard I reeled.
I shook my head hard and managed to stay on my feet, but my eyes rolled back as a deep chill, thick with black dread, welled in my chest.
The cold inside me began to feed the little gnawing sensation in my gut I’d noticed lately, transforming it into what I could only describe as the deepest, most desperate hunger I’d ever felt. Moving beyond hunger, it tipped into an obsessive, yearning ache for something I had to have or else I’d explode from the need.
Blinking to clear my vision, I looked around. Gray mist swirled through the house on airy currents. I exhaled in pleasure as they caressed my skin. The gray was softly pulling at me, coaxing me to follow where it flowed.
As if in a dream, I moved forward, not even feeling my feet touch the ground.
Around a corner. Through a doorway.
There.
This was what I sought: Amanda, the dead witch collapsed on the floor in a dark pool. She was on her side, facing away from me, but there was an ugly, deep slash that ran over her bare upper arm and across her back. Something very strong had lashed out at her with a large blade, and she’d twisted to try to protect herself from the blow.
But it wasn’t her mangled mortal shell that I’d come for. It was the ghostly, translucent image of her that hovered above, bobbing on the currents of gray mist as if it were a balloon still tied to the woman’s wrist. The soul’s face was blank, slack.
And suddenly I knew what was calling me, what deep hunger was driving me.
With a desire so strong it pushed me to the edge of insanity, my reaper yearned to free the still-bound soul.
I couldn’t resist. I didn’t really want to.
The reaper within me was going to use my hands to cut it loose. Even as the tiny piece of Ella that still remained was repelled by the thought, my every cell s
eemed to reach out in longing.
I was going to reap Amanda’s soul.
Chapter 5
A SICKENING, DARK wave of fire and ice surged into my veins. I knew this sensation. I remembered it. This was the same pain that had invaded me the night the reaper marched me out of my apartment and through the dark city to the abandoned ghost house filled with unreaped souls.
I wanted to vomit, to fall on the ground and writhe and turn myself inside out. And yet I also craved more, wished the unfamiliar rush would overtake me until I lost myself in its oblivion.
The gray mist swirled in little eddies as I drifted toward the body and its still-attached soul. I watched it as it flickered, like a hologram that one moment looked more or less like the mortal form of a woman and next was a pale cool blob of pulsing light, swaying in the unfelt breeze of the in-between.
That’s where I was—the in-between. I’d passed into a space where ethereal energies seemed more solid than physical objects. Where souls awaited the ones who released them into the beyond. These were the storied places of which every young crafter was told.
My entire being thrummed with anticipation, the expectation of the darkly magnificent thing I was about to do. The sheer power of it.
With the suddenness of a reflex, my right hand shot up to eye level. In my fist, a curved blade had appeared. It was hook-shaped and black, glinting as if reflecting the silver of moonlight. My movements had changed, taking on a sharp, reptilian quality.
As I moved closer, ready to sever the cord, the soul seemed to awaken. It began to flap madly, like a windsock in a hurricane. It’s eyes were wide and fixed on my left hand rather than on the knife I held.
Confusion passed through the part of my mind that was still Ella. Didn’t souls want to pass on? But then I knew. Through the reaper I understood that I had two choices. I could release it to the beyond, or I could collect the soul devour it and keep it for myself.