Suddenly, as if Elaine stood beneath a great waterfall, water engulfed her. It sluiced over her, leaving her brighter and more vibrant than before.
Yet, still, I saw no magic.
Mathers put something in the wine to alter your perceptions, Vex said, making me jump. I’d forgotten about him. Mescaline, I believe.
That explained the strange taste. Few knew of peyote outside of the United States and Mexico, and fewer still knew of its purer form, mescaline. The drug set the mind and eyes at war with each other. No wonder the others thought Mathers so powerful. Unfortunately for him, I had more than my fair share of experience with such drugs, both in recreation and in ritual. For now, I remained convinced that only one other person in this temple possessed real power; whoever closed the circle. I felt nothing now, but I knew they simply bided their time. Otherwise, why close the circle?
I needed my wits about me when they moved again, so I closed my eyes and turned my magic inward, seeking the drug within my veins. Seeding my will into it, I isolated it, and with a thought, burned it from my blood. My vision cleared as the hooded woman stepped in front of me. She held her pitcher above my head and said once more, “With water, I consecrate thee. May your old life and old ways wash away.”
I closed my eyes as the water dribbled over me. No waterfall this time, however, the sudden shock of cold annoyance helped ground me as the aftereffects of the drug left me a bit unstable.
Her task done, the water-bearing woman reclaimed her place in the circle.
Another of the gathered approached, a man this time, holding a censer. They lit a match on its rough side and placed it inside. Redolent smoke poured forth from within.
“With fire, I consecrate thee. May these flames burn strong within your heart,” the fire bearer said, a male voice this time. He brought the censer close to Elaine’s face, and she breathed deeply, her eyes fluttering closed. She still rode her high, and I wondered what she saw.
Do you see that, Aleister? Vex asked.
I blinked. The drug no longer affects me, so no.
Not that. Magic, Vex said, irritated.
I focused, but I still saw no other magic in the room. I don’t see anything.
Concentrate.
I did as Vex asked. Everything fell away, and the thinnest sliver of power swam into view. Thin as a spider’s silk, a red string wove through the room, connecting each person to every other. Except for me.
I encircled a tendril of the spell with my power, careful not to touch it lest its creator sense me. What is it?
The Crimson Thread of Fate. An incredibly difficult spell to cast and maintain.
I furrowed my brow at that. I knew of the spell, though it fell out of fashion centuries ago. The original working bound two souls together and in ages past, magi bound themselves in marriage with the spell. But this was more than a simple marital binding. This spell connected everyone in the temple, save me. Curious. Spell work of this magnitude took considerable power and skill.
I can’t tell who wove it. Can you?
Vex shook his incorporeal head. He didn’t know either.
“With fire, I consecrate thee,” the fire bearer said, and I realized he stood before me. He brought the censer close enough to warm my wet skin. The smell of lotus enveloped my senses. “May these flames burn strong within your heart.”
I breathed in the smoke, trying in vain to see the man’s face beneath his hood. He waved his censer at me again, then returned to his place in the circle.
Jones took Elaine and me by the arm and helped us stand. Awe lingered in Elaine’s expression, and I hurried to replicate her expression. I wanted my unknown foe to think me still befuddled. Silence reigned once everyone settled in, and for just a moment, none moved within the hall.
“Inheritors of a dying world, we call thee to the living beauty!” Mathers shouted.
“Wanderers in the wild darkness,” the circle responded, “we call thee to the gentle light.” Their voices blended and became legion.
Before the echo of their words faded, Mathers spoke again. “Long hast thou dwelt in darkness. Quit the night and seek the day!”
“Quit the night and seek the day!” The circle answered.
“We receive thee into the Order of the Golden Dawn!” Mathers cried and the circle cheered.
“All hail!” Over and over they took up the call.
An odd feeling rose in my chest.
Acceptance, belonging.
I could see why other aspirants longed to join this Order. As my euphoria faded, something shifted within my being. Not an unpleasant feeling, but one of change. For a moment, I attributed it to the cheering mass around me. Then Vex yelled into my mind.
Aleister, they laid the spell upon you!
I focused inward. Sure enough, the Crimson Thread had threaded into my soul. When did that happen?
During the consecration of fire.
Which makes the Fire Bearer the other mage, I thought at Vex. Where did he go?
He shook his spectral head. I lost him.
Help me find him.
Mathers spoke again, but I paid him no mind. I cast about the temple, looking for the fire bearer. He had faded back among the crush, and I cursed.
Never mind him for now. You must remove him from your soul, Vex scolded.
I closed my eyes, focusing on the web of magic. Something this intricate took time to create. He laid the basis of the spell first, then strung his power between each target, all without the members feeling a thing. All old work, except what he cast upon Elaine and me.
An insidious spell, The Crimson Thread of Fate. In essence, it tied together souls, linking their bodies and minds, allowing them to share power. Used effectively, it made both far more powerful. The bound souls should experience everything as one, yet I felt nothing of the others.
I closed my eyes and dove within, searching for the thread within. As I reached for it, I heard something. A murmur, low and soft, like a whisper. It drew me in, made me want to listen. I sank, falling deep to follow it.
Vex drew my consciousness back. I shook my head when I regained myself, and glanced around, afraid another in the circle might have noticed my lapse, but they remained too engrossed in Mathers’s speech to pay me any attention.
What the bloody hell? I thought to Vex.
Part of the sorcery. It remains unkindled, but he sends hypnotic suggestions through the half-finished spell.
Not good. Even now, the siren call of the fire bearer’s witchery lured me. If it affected me like this, then the other members of the Order stood no chance. Too many of this circle could be seated Parliament lords. If he brings them under his sway, the Book will come to London.
We cannot allow that to happen.
Agreed.
Magic, quick and deadly, sped through the web and slammed into my consciousness. With the Crimson Thread upon me, my earlier wards failed and his attacks stabbed through me, the wound within my psyche cold and numb. I kept my feet in the physical world, but my consciousness reeled. Before I recovered, the attack came again. And again. The unknown wizard hammered at my mind.
I tried to follow his attacks along the other threads, hoping to find him. Each new assault came from somewhere else in the circle, as if I battled the whole of the Golden Dawn. But having to find a new route with each hex staggered his abuse. I gathered my will in the pauses, fighting to hold on to it each time he struck.
At last, I gathered enough.
Protego! I screamed into my mind, and the ward blossomed around my psyche. The next hex rang it like a bell, but it held.
His power pulsed through the web again, and at the moment of impact I whispered, Legere. Instead of my ward dissipating the attack, my casting absorbed his hex, swirling it within my own power. I felt the whole of his essence in that mass of his will.
My turn.
This sorcerer equaled me in skill, but not battle experience. And certainly not power. He delivered substantial strikes, but with too mu
ch haste. He wished to beat me into submission quickly, before his power waned.
Fortunately, I could summon more.
Protected by my ward, I searched for the fourth gate within. The gate of fire. When it opened, I felt like a forge stoked by a bellows. I gathered will in an instant, combining mine with his. The complex pathway through the threads binding us made it nearly impossible to find him, so I used the power I stole from him to craft a finding spell within my own attack. “Tuum mei flammae remitto,” I whispered and dropped my ward to send spectral fire cascading toward my adversary.
This time, he couldn’t hide.
In the physical world, I heard nothing but the ravings of Mathers to his flock, but in my mind, my foe screamed as my magic slammed into him. I enveloped his existence with my spectral flames, seeking to burn the mage from the inside out. He squirmed, lashing out and throwing spells at me and the others in the circle, but I was in control now, and countered each before they manifested.
A new power rose from beside me.
I opened my eyes, and my consciousness returned to the physical world.
Elaine stared at me, eyes wide as magic radiated from her in waves of red, gold, and green. Raw, untamed power, the mark of an untrained, burgeoning mage reacting to the power surge from our battle.
I blinked in surprise. I hadn’t expected she had magic of her own, and I certainly hadn’t considered that she might be blooded.
My assault on the unknown wizard slipped and he sent power surging into Elaine. She cried out in pain and lost her feet. I moved to catch her, but she collapsed onto the marble and across the bronze inlay, breaking the circle. As the rest of the Order realized something was wrong, I fell to the floor at Elaine’s side and scooped her into my lap. When I placed two fingers under her chin to check for a pulse, I found it far weaker than I hoped. Fledglings couldn’t withstand such an assault for long.
Mathers reached us first and knelt beside us. “What happened?”
“Give us some air.” Neither of us needed air, but we did need space.
Another of the Order approached, his hood thrown back to reveal a large gray beard. “She needs a doctor’s hand, sir. Let me see her,” he said, trying to move me aside.
“No doctor can cure what ails her at the moment, now please,” I waved him away. “Give. Us. Some. Air.” I infused will into the words this time, making them a magical command. The gathered crowd backed away.
In the confusion, I lost my hold on the web of power. I reached for it again only to find it gone. Instead, I put my hand to Elaine’s brow, and dove into her spirit. My enemy had dropped all his influence, except upon Elaine. The unknown wizard hammered at her consciousness. I didn’t think he wanted to kill her, but I couldn’t afford to underestimate what he might attempt to save himself.
To sever the connection, I threw up a ward, but he countered my shield as soon as it came up and again with my second casting. I tried a different ward, weaving the magic into a new pattern this time. It stuck, and my enemy’s attacks battered against it to no avail and his connection to Elaine deteriorated.
Elaine convulsed in my arms. I laid a hand upon her chest, probing for the cause with my magic.
Electricity.
The wizard’s magic made the natural energies of her body run rampant.
I pulsed soothing energy into her system, trying to calm the tempest, but it never ceased. The stronger healing magic I needed required opening the gate of water.
But I’d never been able to hold open three gates without the standard rituals.
I reached for it anyway. When it wrenched open, something inside me snapped. All three open gates crashed shut, and the sudden absence of their power left me reeling.
Aleister, the door! Vex shouted.
I looked up.
The whole Order gathered around us.
Save one.
He stood by the door, his face shadowed by his hood. When he saw me watching him, he turned and slipped through the doors.
Leave him, Vex said. I grit my teeth.
But—
Elaine will die. Leave. Him.
“Damn it all to bloody hell.” I gathered Elaine into my arms and struggled to my feet. I didn’t have the means to end her suffering here. I needed to get her back to my house.
I just hoped to make it in time.
12
Elaine Simpson
She wakes, Vex said, as the kettle whistled on the stove.
Sure enough, a groan from my second bedroom announced Elaine’s return to consciousness. I quieted the kettle and prepared a tray for my guest, then made my way down the hall to the bedroom.
Elaine thrashed against the heavy blankets and cracked open her eyes as I set the tray on the bedside table. “Where am I?” she rasped.
“Relax.” I imparted will into the words, infusing them with a bit of calm as I sat in the little chair next to the bed. “You are safe in my flat on Chancery Lane. I brought you here after you collapsed at the initiation rite.”
“What happened?” she asked, relaxing back into the pillows “I feel like a horse kicked me. Repeatedly.”
“Seizures will do that to you. Especially magical ones.”
Elaine’s eyes widened with fear. She had willingly revealed that she knew of the supernatural, yet me knowing she possessed magical abilities frightened her. How curious. Why hide it when she openly associated herself with the magical? And she must have been hiding it all her life. Blooded mages like us come into our powers young, and the untrained rarely survive into adulthood. The longer I knew her, the more mysterious she became.
“You know?” she whispered, suddenly guarded.
“I do,” I said calmly, lifting the teapot and pouring her a cup. “How do you like it?”
She hesitated at the sudden change of subject. After a moment she grudgingly said, “Cream, no sugar.”
“A woman after my own heart.” I smiled and poured a splash of cream into her cup, stirred it a bit, then handed it to her. As I set about making my own cup, I said, “There was another spellcaster present at the rite. Your magic reacted to our battle, and he attacked you. I believe he counted on my intervention to save you as the perfect distraction to make his escape.”
“Did you see him?” she said, her face hard.
“I never saw his face or found him amongst the circle. While I tended you, his power disappeared.” I set my cup on the tray. “This magician matched me spell for spell. His willingness to do whatever necessary to achieve his ends concerns me.”
She nodded, then fell silent, staring into her cup as if she might find the answers to life there.
I watched her for a few moments before I said, “Drink.”
She jumped a bit and looked up at me.
“You’ll feel better.”
Hesitantly, she sipped. Her face relaxed. “It’s lovely.”
“I’m glad you like it,” I said with a smile.
She sipped again, and we slipped into silence as I sat back to enjoy my own cup. Vex’s presence weighed heavy at the front of my mind, his attention concentrated on our guest. So many questions buzzed about my head as I studied her, but I held my tongue. Until something struck me.
“This Shadow Council. They didn’t send you here, did they?”
Elaine stilled. “What makes you say that?”
“Your blood holds magic but you’re untrained. No magical organization would send you on a mission where you may find yourself against a rogue magician unless they knew you could hold your own.” I reached over, took her empty cup and prepared another.
“Perhaps they thought my skill with a blade sufficient.” She sipped her tea as I made another cup for myself.
“I don’t doubt your skill, not with the scars you have. But you need a bit more to take on a seasoned magician, and I imagine your Shadow Council knows that. Which leaves me with a question. Just who are you, Elaine Simpson?”
“I could ask you the same question,” she replied. I remained
silent, and after a moment she sighed. “You ask for a complicated answer.”
“Now that I believe.”
She laughed, and the tension in her shoulders eased. “My life has changed rapidly in the last few years. At a very low point, I met a man who took me in as I attempted to get my life in order. He was a member of the Shadow Council.”
“Who are they?”
“A league of like-minded, supernaturally-inclined individuals spanning the globe. They keep the magical world in line.”
Very curious. So this Shadow Council operated the same way as the Knight Mages of the Crown, though on an international scale. That Vex trusted Elaine when she mentioned them spoke volumes about their integrity.
They work for the good of the world as well. Not just the British Empire, Vex said.
“You learned of the Golden Dawn from them?”
“I overheard a conversation,” she said, somewhat sheepish. “The Order’s possible aim concerned them, given the possibility that Mathers possessed real magic. They sent a message to some organization here in London to handle the situation. Unfortunately, the Shadow Council had no one that could teach me to use my power, so I came to London to investigate the Golden Dawn myself.”
“And to search for an instructor.”
She didn’t reply, fixing me with her gaze instead. Hope etched her face, but I shook my head. I couldn’t give her what she sought.
“A bit late don’t you think?” I said instead.
“I repressed my power.” Her eyes focused on something distant, perhaps seeing the past.
I waited for her to continue, but she didn’t. “And?” I asked, snapping her out of her reverie.
“And yes,” she focused on me again. “I wormed my way into the ranks of the Golden Dawn to find a magus to instruct me.” She shook her head. “I hoped to ‘find the light of hidden knowledge’ among them, as it were, but found snobbish aristocrats playing pretend instead. Still, something about Mathers seemed off. Men and women such as these don’t sway easily, yet they danced in the palm of his hand and hung on his every word. I decided to research him.”
A Web of Crimson Page 7