He cried out in fear, scrambling back and falling.
Her blade missed its mark and opened his forearm.
Shrieks and bellows of terror reverberated through the temple. The explosion of voices deafened me after the silence of the ritual. Members of the Order scattered, with some streaking for the door, others screaming for someone to tell them what was happening. As they did, the circle broke.
“Never fear! This has all been planned!” Mathers shouted over the din to little effect as he tried to herd the crush of bodies away from Elaine and Thompson.
I scrambled around the altar, reaching deep for the first gate of power. I pushed will into it, and it slammed open, energy surging through me.
Elaine stabbed at Thompson again. He fell, only barely missing the bite of her blade. On hands and knees, he tried to scurry away. Elaine didn’t let him. She pounced like a leopard, driving her knee into his back. Breath whooshed from his lungs.
She grabbed a handful of hair and lifted his head, placing her blade beneath her chin. “It’s over, Thompson,” she hissed.
Thompson’s eyes met mine, and I saw fear.
And confusion.
“Wait,” I yelled as I reached them. “Don’t kill him.”
“Why?” Elaine said, bewildered.
“Because he has no idea why this is happening.” To Thompson I asked, “Do you?”
“Please. I’ll give you whatever you want. Just don’t kill me,” he pleaded, tears leaking from his eyes.
Elaine’s eyebrows rose, and she let the man go. When the blade left his throat, he sobbed in earnest, and a pang of guilt shot through me.
“If Thompson isn’t our rogue, then who is?” Elaine said.
Aleister, behind you! Vex shouted before I could answer.
I spun and shouted “Protego!” An opaque, azure shield burst into existence before me. An unknown spell rattled against it and fizzled.
He kindles another spell!
I leapt to Elaine’s side and surrounded us with warding. Magic snapped through the air, but nothing struck the shield. Instead, everyone halted, frozen in place, including Mathers. A deathly silence fell over the temple, and I cast about, searching for the one responsible. All I saw were robed men and women, still as statues. Many had thrown back their hoods in the earlier chaos, and those faces I could see had a glazed look, their eyes unfocused and unseeing. It sent a shiver down my spine.
“You frustrated me from the start, Mr. Crowley,” a man said from somewhere among the still masses.
“Show yourself,” Elaine shouted beside me, making me jump.
“As you wish.”
In the center of the temple, one of the robed moved. He turned to face us and threw back his hood. I cursed when I saw his dark hair and curled mustache.
“George Cecil Jones,” I spat. The name tasted like ash on my tongue.
“Is that any way to speak to your patron?” the bastard asked, a wicked grin marring his face.
“Go to Hell,” Elaine growled, pulling another blade from beneath her robes.
“I should have known,” I said, berating myself.
“I daresay you should have,” Jones said with a laugh, the sound grating and cruel. “During the initiation I thought you must be blind not to notice the magician you battled with stood right next to you.”
“What about Thompson?” Elaine asked.
“You bastard,” I snarled.
“Keep him distracted,” Elaine whispered to me as Jones’s laughter echoed through the temple. “Then, drop the ward on my signal.”
I nodded without turning. To Jones, I said, “What did you do to them?”
“I completed my spell.” He held both hands over his head like a puppeteer. As he moved them side to side, every member swayed with the same tempo, an incredibly unsettling sight. “It took me months to set it all in place.” Jones stepped back, throwing an arm around the shoulders of one of the robed figures. “I placed a kindling mechanism deep within the spell. It only took a thought tonight.”
“Why didn’t you kindle it at the initiation?” I asked.
“You, of course,” he sneered, weaving through the crowd toward us. “I intended to, but I couldn’t risk you undoing the spell before I achieved my purpose.”
I needed to keep him talking until we had a clear line of sight. “What purpose?”
“Don’t act coy, Mr. Crowley,” he said, slithering into view for a moment before disappearing again. Damn. “You know my purpose.”
“The Book of Thoth,” Elaine said. I glanced her way and found her in a fighting crouch. “Why do you need it?”
I gathered will. Slowly, so as not to alert Jones.
“Why does anyone need the most powerful magical artifact in the world?” Jones asked. “Power.”
“I know what the Book can do to someone, Jones,” I said. “You don’t want it.”
“I’m finished explaining myself, and you’ve wasted enough of my time.” Jones said.
Damn it, we still didn’t have our opening.
He waved a hand at us, and I felt him kindle will. “Kill them.”
The Order ground into motion and closed in on us.
“Now,” Elaine said, much calmer than I.
The divine help us.
The pale blue ward around us dissipated. I kindled will and roared, “Tempestas coorta est!”
Air blasted out of me with the force of a hurricane. It swirled through the room, throwing our inadvertent assailants against the walls. They’d be injured, but nothing I couldn’t fix.
Jones threw up his own shimmering silver ward. Once my spell ripped through the temple, he dropped it, turned heel, and fled.
Elaine bounded to her feet, a throwing knife in each hand. With a flick of her wrists, she sent both spinning toward Jones. The first ripped his robes, but the second caught him in the shoulder. He stumbled but didn’t stop. Elaine raced after him like a black dog chasing the damned.
After them, Vex urged me.
They had already begun to scramble up the stairs before I passed through the temple doors. Their footfalls echoed off the stone as I rushed to catch up. He couldn’t get outside. Too many innocents, and too many ways to disappear. I took the steps two at a time, desperation spurring me on. I cleared the top of the stairs and sprinted down the entry corridor. Jones and Elaine were already halfway to the entrance. I gathered will for an impediment spell, shouting it at his back. “Prohibe!”
It missed.
But Elaine gained on him fast.
Jones glanced over his shoulder, his eyes widening when he saw her. He tried to pick up his pace but stumbled.
It was enough.
Elaine dove headfirst into him, catching him around the waist and tackling him to the ground. She rolled over him, grabbing the knife in his shoulder and twisting as she went. Jones cried out, blood pumping from the wound. Tumbling to her feet again, Elaine kicked Jones in the face as he fought to stand. His head snapped back and cracked into the stone wall.
Breathing heavy, I raced past them to the wall hiding the exit. I raised my hands and kindled will into a sealing spell. Chanting softly in Latin, I wove the spell across the stone, binding the opening mechanism. As soon as I finished, Elaine screamed behind me.
I turned in time to watch her fly backward into the wall. She hit hard and collapsed onto the floor. I opened my Sight, desperate to see if she lived. Her aura pulsed weakly, but it was still there.
Jones got to his feet, one hand covering the wound in his shoulder, blood seeping through his fingers, and his nose bleeding freely. “It’s high time I kill you,” he growled, his words muffled by his broken nose.
“You can try.” I slammed open the gate of fire. Power burned through me. I gathered all I could and cried, “Serpentis flammae ex inferno advoco!”
Emerald flames erupted from my hands and spiraled down the hall. A great green serpent of undying flame bent on consuming all in its path. A terribly powerful spell, and one that usually
required a full coven. I could barely manage it alone, but I wanted Jones dead, no matter the cost.
He stumbled back, throwing up his arms as his ward spread across the hall between us. Serpent flame struck it like a tidal wave. The corridor shook around us, and the ward bowed. But it held.
I poured more power into the spell, giving everything. The flames surged, battering his shield. The heat in the corridor became unbearable and the stone around glowed under the assault of the undying flames.
Jones’s power waned, but not fast enough. This spell consumed a great deal of my power, and if it depleted me before I killed Jones, the world lost everything.
We strained against each other. For a brief second, we seemed evenly matched, then something gave. His ward shattered like glass, loose fragments of power ricocheting through the hall, and Jones fell.
With a shout of victory, I drove my flames toward him, intent on the kill.
A counter-spell stronger than any I’d encountered before tore through my curse.
The sudden cessation of my spell left me reeling. I stumbled and fell to my hands and knees. My breath came in heaving gasps. Nothing remained of my power.
Who the bloody hell had cast that spell?
Jones loomed over me, his weariness gone. Straight-backed, he smiled at me. “I didn’t want to use this, you know,” Jones said, his voice strong and sharp. He brandished a sharpened length of metal the width of his palm.
“What…did you do?” I wheezed, trying to get to my feet and reached deep, trying to force another gate open.
A spell seared through me, locking the gates tight.
“One of the Three Nails of Christ.” Jones held up the metal in his hand. “The one that pierced his right hand.”
“Impossible,” I groaned. “The Church destroyed the Nails centuries ago.”
The Nails, soaked in the blood of Christ, were some of the most powerful magical focal objects in the world. Legend said a blooded magician who wielded one possessed unlimited power. Countless wars raged over them, until the Church gathered them all and destroyed them.
“History hides many a lie. They never found the third.” Jones’s skin shimmered, and with a crack, his nose righted itself. Blood evaporated from his clothing, leaving him looking as if we never battled at all.
I intended to keep fighting.
I dug deep, gathering the last of my will, and threw a slashing spell at Jones’s neck.
He knocked the spell aside like a cat batting a piece of string.
The last of my strength gone, I collapsed.
Jones knelt beside me. “You proved a worthy foe.” He held a hand in front of my face, and an emerald flame kindled in his palm. No incantation. How powerful did the Nail make him? He smiled more gently this time. “I thought it poetic to end your life with the same spell you intended to end mine with. Goodbye, Mr. Crowley.”
He drew his arm back, and everything went black.
17
I Will Give You Power
I don’t know how long I lingered in the darkness. A minute. An hour. Perhaps a lifetime. Time stood still, and as far as I could tell, only I existed. I saw nothing, felt nothing, heard nothing. No taste touched my tongue, nor odor reached my nostrils. In truth, I didn’t know if I still possessed a body.
“Where are we?” My thoughts echoed in the void.
“Outside of time.” The reply seemed to come from everywhere at once. A familiar voice.
“Vex?”
“Indeed,” he said.
I tried to find him in the blackness, hoping to glimpse him at least once. But I saw nothing. “How did I get here?”
“I brought you here. I am much more than you imagine, Aleister.”
“Why bring me here?”
“You are about to die,” he said. His words conjured images of Jones kneeling in front of me, the undying flame coating his hand. “Your power failed, and Jones intends to end your life. But a chance remains.”
The memory evaporated at Vex’s words. “What chance?”
“He wields a Nail of Christ, and with it, even at the height of your strength, you could not stand against him,” he said.
I nodded. Or at least, I thought I did, I couldn’t tell
“But I can give you power,” Vex said. “More than you ever dreamed. Power to turn the tide.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. “Why?”
“Because we need you, Aleister. And because you must stop George Cecil Jones. He already possesses a Nail. If he gains the Book, he will shroud this world in darkness.”
True enough, but I found something odd about his words. “Who is ‘we’?” I asked.
Vex remained frustratingly silent.
“All power comes at a price.” I dreaded the answer, but I asked, “What will this cost me?”
“Your soul.” Vex said. “I bequeath you power, and you relinquish yourself to me.”
I expected the answer, yet it still took me by surprise. This sounded demonic, yet, I didn’t think Vex a demon. “What will you do with my soul if I cede it?”
“Until you die? Nothing. After?” I could almost hear him shrug. “Well, it depends on the use to which you put my gift.”
Not the answer of a demon. Something inside told me to take the deal. It felt like fate. But I couldn’t help wondering. “Why me?”
“Because, in this age, it must be you.”
“And if I refuse?”
“You will die, forcing me to seek another.” He sounded weary and I knew he truly didn’t want that to come to pass. “Elaine Simpson, perhaps. She has potential.”
I pondered everything he said in the ensuing silence.
Vex asked a high price, and I understood little of what I might expect in return. But if I did nothing, I died, and Jones would wreak havoc on the world.
Vex’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Time runs short, Aleister. Choose.”
So I did.
The world returned, and once again, Jones hovered over me, hand flickering with emerald flame. His hand drew back with almost painful slowness. His power tainted the air, acrid and rotten. He wielded a Nail of Christ, but its power fell far short of holy.
As one, all seven gates opened. Power, immense and overwhelming, roared through my body. As Vex promised, more power than I could ever have dreamed. For a moment, I thought this new strength might kill me before Jones got his chance, but then I felt Vex’s presence like never before. Like he stood beside me.
Concentrate, Aleister. You can master this. Calm yourself and breathe.
I took a breath, then another.
Gradually, the storm raging in me subsided.
I reached out and touched Vex’s gift and it rose to meet me. With a thought, my will gathered, faster than ever before. I kindled a piercing spell and hurled it at my assailant.
Time returned to normal as my spell stabbed through Jones’s shoulder. The same one Elaine had wounded. Blood spewed from the hole and he screamed, clasping a hand to the wound. The undying flames coating his hand flickered and died, his concentration broken.
I hit him again, this time with a rush of wind, flinging him down the corridor. He landed hard, crying out as he rolled. But he still commanded the power of the Nail, and regained his feet in seconds, his shoulder already healed.
“How?” he spat at me. “You had nothing left!”
“I found more,” I said.
He threw his free hand toward me.
I saw the shape of the spell and pushed it with my will.
It fizzled.
He tried again.
Once more, I countered it.
Again, and again he tried to kindle something, anything. I stopped each attempt, never moving a muscle. At last, he shrieked in frustration and charged me, his footfalls unsure and his body unbalanced. I felt no magic, and realized he meant to fight me hand-to-hand. I let him come, gathering will into my muscles. When he came within reach, I stepped into him with a burst of unnatural speed and hammered my fis
t into his chest.
At least three ribs broke from the force of the strike, increased tenfold by my will. He sailed from his feet and crashed into the stone. The fall drove the breath from his lungs, and he lay there, fighting for air.
“Adligo te.” My spell snapped tight, binding him to the floor as if with chain. I strode to his side, bent down, and took the Nail.
Its power thrummed through me, rich and heady. It spoke to me, begging me to use it. I slipped it into a pocket, and the feeling disappeared.
“This isn’t over, Crowley,” Jones gasped, spittle flying from his lips.
“Yes. It is.” I felt him slipping into unconsciousness, and I wrapped my will about his mind, keeping him awake. “Where did you get the Nail?”
“Go to Hell.”
“Eventually. Now, answer my question.”
He stared at me, mouth closed.
When I tired of waiting, I sighed. “The hard way then.”
I closed my eyes, sending a tendril of power into the base of Jones’s neck. After a moment I found his spinal cord, the entryway to his entire nervous system. I surged my power into it, sending electricity roiling through his body. His back arched, and he howled in pain, a primal, desperate sound.
“Where did you get the Nail?” I asked again.
Sweat soaked his face. He shook his head.
I hit him again. And again.
“I can’t,” he screeched at last. Tears and blood streamed down his face. “He’ll do so much worse to me if I tell you.”
“Tell me his name.”
He swallowed hard. “Kill me.”
I hit him with the electricity again and again, until his skin blackened. Still, he refused to tell me.
Tear the information from his mind, Vex said.
You ask me to violate Knight Mage law. They’ll execute me if they find out, I said, shocked. Most other injuries magic could cure, but not a mind break. If Jones survived, his mind would be lost forever.
We must discover the identity of the puppeteer pulling Jones’s strings, Vex insisted. He already broke a dozen laws tonight. He forfeited his rights long ago.
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