She stopped swishing it around and just stared at it. She carefully rose and walked around me, and as she moved the crystal farther away, the glow dimmed. It brightened when she got closer again. I began to see that she was measuring the extent of my, well, aura, I guessed.
She lowered it with one hand and the glow disappeared. “That was…interesting,” she said breathlessly.
Seraphina nodded. “Yes, yes. I sensed her aura, too.”
Nick rolled his eyes.
Doc took the scrying stick from Jolene’s hand and examined it, taking it to the lamp to look it over under the light. “That’s some fine work you did there, Jolene. Seemed to work like a charm…so to speak.”
“I soaked the stick in charmed oil for two days, and then I wiped it with pure linen. And I polished the crystal and the stone myself.”
“And the feather?”
“Got it from inside a nest, so it wasn’t taken in violence.”
I was sure all that meant something to the two of them. They conferred quietly about it for some time before I rose and stood behind them. “All that’s well and good, but what did that prove?”
“Well now.” Doc held the scrying stick across both his hands. “This indicates that there is some kind of magical aura around you.”
“Wait. So you mean if you did the same thing to all of you, it wouldn’t glow?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“Prove it.” I raised my chin. If we were going about this scientifically, then I wanted some empirical evidence.
“Ay-yuh. I agree.” He handed it back to Jolene and she held it in both hands again, taking a moment before holding it up to Doc. At first nothing happened, but then the merest of glimmers started in the depths of the crystal. No matter how close Jolene aimed the stick at him, though, the glow wouldn’t get any brighter.
She turned to Seraphina and an even softer glow came from the crystal. And when she aimed it at Nick, the same tentative glow. She handed the stick to Nick, and when he dutifully turned it toward Jolene, it also glowed dimly. When he lowered it the light winked out.
Everyone looked at the other. “That’s weird,” said Jolene.
“You mean you didn’t expect that?” I said.
“No, not really. I didn’t expect it to glow for any of us.” She turned to Doc. “What does it mean?”
Doc looked at me, then at the Booke, then at me again, all the while pinching his lip with his fingers. “I don’t quite know. Here, Nick. Give that over.” Nick seemed a little too anxious to be rid of the crystal and Doc examined it. He took a breath, and held it toward me again. The thing glowed as bright as a floodlight. When he lowered it the light went out.
“Damnedest thing,” he said.
“Okay,” I admitted. “So we’re all a little glowy.”
“But you the most,” said Nick, staring at me slack-jawed. “And Doc next.”
“Well that’s ’cause…” I looked at Jolene. “Why is that?”
“Because…of the book?” She turned to Doc for confirmation.
“Ay-yuh. Unless…you are a mage.”
I felt their eyes on me and I raised my hands. “Nope. Not a mage. Never maged in my life.” But my gaze traveled toward the Booke. I felt as if it were staring at me, too. “It’s that,” I said, and I pointed. “I know it’s that.”
They all turned and looked at it.
Doc nodded. “Makes sense. And it justifies what I’ve been contemplating. I think we need to perform some protective Craft. You are too vulnerable, especially with that other demon lurking about.”
“I agree,” said Seraphina. She set her empty bowl aside and folded her fingers together. Her bright purple fingernails gleamed in the firelight.
“What about that evil vortex?” I asked. “We can’t leave it open. For all we know, it killed Karl Waters.”
“I’m still pretty sure that was a succubus,” said Jolene.
“But maybe that’s where the succubus comes from,” I told her. “Maybe this vortex opens and then bang! That’s how you get your victim.”
Jolene shook her head. “I don’t think that’s how it works.”
“Why not? Who here is an expert?”
“Well, I’ve been doing a lot of reading…” Jolene said.
“As have I,” said Doc.
“But I went there with the Booke…”
“This vortex is a problem,” he went on, “regardless of what it means. What did Mr. Dark have to say about it?”
“Not much,” I said into my beer bottle. “But don’t you think we should go over there? Check it out?”
Nick sputtered his beer. “To where the vortex is?”
“Well, yeah. You should all get a closer look at it. Assess the situation. Aim your stick at it.”
No one seemed overly enthusiastic about that prospect. “Guys, come on! This doesn’t happen every day, right?”
Nick put his beer down on a coaster. “Kylie, it might have escaped your notice, but we”—and he encompassed the Wiccans with a gesture—“don’t really know what we’re doing.”
There was a general sound of disagreement but Nick put his hands in the air. “Come on, guys. We meet once a week and talk about the spirits of nature, we do a chant or two, and break for snacks. We’re not exactly Bewitched, here. I mean, Jolene’s scrying stick was cool, but…”
They fell silent. All my fears were closing in. I had asked for their help, but what could they really do? I was definitely in it over my head.
Doc nodded. “Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I think we have started taking this a bit more seriously.”
“I’ve got the research,” said Jolene. “And I worked on the scryer. And it works.”
Seraphina giggled. “I’m raring to go!”
Doc turned at last to Nick. “Nick? What about you?”
“The scryer glowed for you, too, Nick,” said Jolene in a pleading voice.
Nick seemed to gather himself and jumped to his feet. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. If everyone else is in, then so am I. I’m ready. Ready to be the warlock I was meant to be.”
Doc’s cheeks pinked with his smile. “All right then. Kylie. I think you’re right. We have to at least take a look at this vortex and then…well, we’ll go from there.”
• • •
Everyone trundled into my car. I pulled onto Lyndon Road and headed toward the highway. They all fell silent as the night drew around us, and all we could see of our little hamlet was what the headlights revealed in the dark. As we approached Gifford Corner, I worried that the bikers would be there. Right hand of the Devil, eh? Maybe that was just bravado, like Nick said, though these days, I couldn’t afford to doubt.
The headlights illuminated the museum and its yellow tape. But no motorcycles. I was relieved until I remembered what we were doing there. We all got out of the car as quietly as we had ridden there. I approached the front door first and was still surprised to find it open. I couldn’t think of a way to tell the sheriff about that without justifying myself. Why had I gone back to the scene of the crime?
My Wiccans followed me in. The place was cold but the temperature had dropped with the sunset. Did it seem unusually cold? My breath fogged around my face and I turned to the stacks, toward the place Karl had died. A faint glow lit the shelves.
I pointed. “See that?” I whispered. They gathered near me. Doc nodded to me and ventured forward. “Don’t get too close,” I told him.
I stuck to his back and went with him. Seraphina was behind me, followed by Nick, with Jolene in the rear.
We edged around the counter and moved down the aisle. But once we turned the corner of the shelves, we saw it. Like a crack in midair that was fully three-dimensional. It shone a bright green. It wasn’t the wide-open maw I’d seen before, but instead a glowing crack in…what? The space-time continuum?
“Awesome,” breathed Jolene.
“No one get any closer,” I warned. “It might open. It grabbed me before.”<
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“What’s this?” said Seraphina. She knelt and scraped something off the floor with her fingernail. “Looks like wax. Black wax.”
“I saw black candle stubs here earlier. Thought it was strange that the police would need that.”
“Ritual,” said Nick. He pointed to the floor. There were faint chalk lines and more dribbled wax. I thought the chalk was something the cops did but maybe not. Surely this hadn’t been here when the police investigated or they would have taken it as evidence.
Nick gave me a significant look.
“What should we do?” I asked Doc.
He looked as scared as anyone. “I don’t know. Jolene, why don’t you scry it. See what it might turn up.”
Jolene reached into her bag with a trembling hand and brought out her scryer. She barely lifted it when it started to glow. Not the clean white light that it had emitted for me and the Wiccans, but a blood red light that broke into beams and lit up the whole museum. Deep rumbling voices emerged from the vortex crack, that sound I’d heard before just as it grabbed me.
We all took a step back. All except Jolene, who seemed rooted to the spot.
“Jolene!” I hissed. “Put that thing away and let’s go.”
But she was frozen in place, too scared to move. I grabbed her shoulders and whirled her around. The scryer fell to the floor and the beams of light shut off, but when I looked at her face her eyes were glowing with that same red light, almost the way Erasmus’s eyes did when he was angry.
“Whoa, Jolene!” I turned desperately to Doc. “What’s happening?”
“You fools,” said Jolene, but definitely not with her voice. It was a basso profondo, the same voice that had come from the vortex. Her face was left strangely blank. “You have no idea, no idea at all.”
“Then why don’t you tell us,” I said, unable to entertain where I got the courage.
“Tell you? Oh no, dear Kylie. The game must be played. All of it. To the last man. Or woman.” And then it laughed, a bone-chilling deep laughter.
“Who are you? What are you doing here? What do you want?”
But the voice only laughed again. “Go now. Stay out of the shadows. For the game is not for the weak of heart. What has begun cannot now be stopped.”
And as quickly as it had seized her, the red light left her eyes and she collapsed. I was close enough to catch her before she hit the floor, but Nick was right beside me, cradling her, too.
Jolene blinked and looked up at us. “That was seriously weird.” She leaned into Nick.
Doc was at her side. “Jolene, were you aware during the…the possession?”
“Yeah. It was like I was pushed aside and this other guy moved into my place, using my mouth. I couldn’t stop him.”
“Who was it?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I feel like I should, but he was also sort of blocking me, so I wouldn’t be able to say. But I could tell something, too.” She pushed away from Nick and retrieved the scryer. “He was controlling me, but I heard some of his thoughts.”
“What?” said Doc. “What did you hear?”
“This,” she said, showing the scryer. “This is more than a detector. It’s a way in.”
Chills were now running up my back. “Into…what?”
She stared at me. “It’s like trying to retrieve an elusive dream. It’s all slipping away. So I’m not sure. But…dammit! It’s important. But I can’t…I can’t remember…”
“I’ve seen enough,” said Doc urgently. “This is way beyond my experience. I suggest we leave. Now. Before we disturb anything else.”
We backed away, giving the glowing crack a wide berth. I felt we should lock the place down but didn’t know how. And I thought maybe we should call in the sheriff. Perhaps an anonymous call. Though what the cops could do about a vortex to the Netherworld I didn’t know. On second thought, maybe it was best not to call them. No need to get anyone else killed.
Just as silently as we arrived, we drove back to my place. Solemnly, we marched inside and stood around the fireplace.
“What do we do now?” I asked. Jolene hadn’t stopped looking at the scryer in her hand, turning it over and over, as if trying to discern what went wrong with it. I couldn’t help the disturbing thought that it had worked exactly right. I wondered if it wouldn’t be safer just storing that thing away because whatever it did, we didn’t seem capable of controlling it. It might take a mage to do that. And then I remembered how much the thing glowed when aimed at me.
But that was all the Booke, right? There was nothing mage about me.
I just knew those bikers, the Ordo, were doing something over there, making rituals where poor Karl died. Probably because Karl died there. Even if they didn’t have anything to do with his death, it seemed a cold-blooded thing to do.
I looked toward my Wiccans. “So did the Ordo conjure that vortex, or did the vortex just show up there?”
“That’s not something I’m equipped to say,” said Doc as Nick helped him off with his coat. “But I think it’s more important than ever for us to perform our Craft to protect you, either from the creature from the book or these Ordo members and their demon.” He turned to Jolene. “Did you bring…?”
“Got it all here, Doc.” She had recovered, looking like her old determined self again, and stuffed the scryer into her Hello Kitty bag before taking out various items and placing them on the small table beside her: chalk, a rather sharp-looking knife, a golden goblet, a stick, and a fat beeswax candle.
I was getting nervous. That scryer scared the heck out of me, and now Doc was talking about performing witchcraft, and I didn’t know if I was okay with that. Then I mentally slapped myself. What was a little witchcraft to all that I’d seen so far?
Both Doc and Jolene rose from their chairs and began moving them out of the way. I rose, too. “So…what’s involved here? No animal sacrifices, I hope.” I was only half-kidding, because I really did hope that wouldn’t be happening on my floor.
Doc helped Jolene move the small table out of the way, leaving a cleared spot on my braided rug. He chuckled. “Oh, no. Though I saw my share of that when I did my research in Africa. It’s more the Satanists’ thing than Wicca. Voodoo, Santeria…they all rely on ritual sacrifice. Personally, I don’t think it’s worth the mess.”
“Neither do I,” said Seraphina. “And the forest spirits don’t like it. No need to hurt their creatures.”
“And if the Ordo do it,” said Nick, “then I’m definitely not into it.”
Jolene handed the chalk to Nick, who rolled up the rug and pushed it aside, leaving a blank spot on my wood floor. He looked up at me. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said, pausing with the chalk. “It’s just chalk. It’ll wash right off.”
“No, no. Go ahead. Don’t let me stop you.”
Nick etched a careful pentagram on my plank floor. That had better come out, I thought. At least I could put the rug over it if it didn’t. Last thing I needed in my shop with the name “Strange” on the shingle was a pentagram in the middle of my floor.
“It’s all quite necessary,” Doc went on. “It makes a lot of sense when you stop to think about it.” I just nodded. I couldn’t imagine any of it making any sense, no matter how long I thought about it.
As Nick drew, I remembered the pentagram in the church hall storeroom. Should I say something about that? But after all, I wasn’t actually certain of what I saw. And it didn’t do to start making accusations against people I really didn’t know. I vowed to check it out at some later point, though.
Nick finished his pentagram and began drawing strange symbols at each of the points. He looked back over his shoulder. “I know pentagrams scare people. But there’s really nothing wrong with them. Just because it’s upside down doesn’t mean it’s bad. It can mean whatever you want it to mean, like the Ordo guys,” he went on. “This is a benign one. These symbols are the Guardians of the cardinal points. It starts up here at the top with ‘Aether’ or
‘Spirit’ symbolized by this circle.” He drew it and moved on to the point on the right, where he drew an upside-down triangle. “For ‘Water,’” he said. The bottom right leg got a right-side-up triangle. “‘Fire,’” he said. The other leg got another inverted triangle with a horizontal line drawn across its center. “‘Earth.’” And at the last point another right-side-up triangle also with a horizontal line through it. “And ‘Air.’ These are important symbols when practicing Craft. They unite all the elements under the Aether and reintegrate them within the magic circle, creating harmony and safety. It’s to help protect you and this house.”
“Right,” I mumbled. Meanwhile, Doc was leaning into the fireplace and lighting a sage bundle on the glowing embers. After he got it smoking, he set it on a dish by the “Air” point of the pentagram. Jolene was pouring some bottled water into the cup. Seraphina had grabbed the stick.
“What’s with the stick?” I asked.
She cocked her head at me and smiled with her over-rouged lips. “It’s not a stick, silly. It’s a willow wand. Very powerful for protection.” She waved it through the sage smoke and placed it at the “Earth” corner. Jolene set the goblet at the “Water” corner.
Nick lit the candle that had seen its share of burning before, judging by its drips, and set it in the “Fire” corner.
Doc took up the knife and held his hand out to me. I cringed back. “Kylie, please take your place within the pentagram.” I took his hand and he helped me navigate the smoking, sloshing objects until I stood awkwardly in the center. He still held my hand and the knife in the other. “Now, I hope you’ll forgive me, but I just have to prick you finger a little. Won’t sting but a second.”
I yanked my hand back. “Why?” My heart was thundering. The amulet felt strangely heavy against my chest.
“We need just a drop of your blood for the Aether, to unite the elements. It’s really the best protection for you. Trust me.”
“I don’t know.” The Wiccans had all taken up kneeling positions around me. They had started to hum.
“I know it looks odd, but we have done this kind of ritual before. A protection spell is one of the first any Wiccan learns. We all saw that vortex, and, frankly, if what we suspect about those Baphomet worshippers is true, you are going to need the most powerful magic we can craft. And it always involves blood, I’m sorry to say. I’ve sterilized the knife. I’m a doctor, after all.”
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