by Teri Harman
The monk swallowed but didn’t move. “Please go.”
Archard stepped forward, his fine shoes clipping the stone floor. The monk stood his ground. Heat rose under the witch’s skin as he locked his gaze on the man, who had the gall to stare back. Archard stepped around him, a predator’s circle. When the monk began to protest, again demanding that they leave, Archard released his magic and the man’s body burst into flames. His scream of pain and terror filled the stone room, echoing.
Rachel moved aside casually as the monk ran forward, flapping his arms, a chaotic streak of flames. She and Archard watched calmly as the monk dived out the door and then collapsed, a burning, shrieking heap.
The witches turned away. Rachel followed Archard down the hall, the monk’s final cries echoing along the stone walls. They found the records housed in the basement, in a series of small rooms lined with boxy wooden shelves packed with scrolls, books, and papers. Oddly, no one else tried to bar their way.
“Where are the rest of the monks?” Rachel asked warily as they surveyed the shelves.
“It doesn’t matter,” Archard waved her off. “Do you see what we need?”
It took them only a few moments, searching with a bit of magic, to find records that mentioned a Dark witch in the 1500s.
Archard gingerly pulled an ancient codex from its place and took it to a long wooden table in the center of the room. He waved his hand, morphing the Latin into English. The witches leaned in, head to head.
The satisfying triumph of discovery throbbed in Archard’s veins. “These are the monks that killed Bartholomew,” he whispered. “Holy moon! How do you think they managed that?”
Rachel leaned close to the writing. “It says they tracked down the Covenant not far from here. Bartholomew had an estate to the west, on the coast.” She looked up. “Do you think he kept the boxes there?”
“Yes,” Archard said with certainty. “The difficulty will be finding them. The estate may not exist anymore. And most likely, he kept them well hidden and guarded with impenetrable enchantments.”
Rachel’s eyes snapped wide. “The monks attacked, killing the Covenant members by trapping them in the house and setting it on fire. At first, they believed Bartholomew died with them. But it says that they found Bartholomew’s body in an old church on his estate the next morning. No one was sure who killed him or how he died. That’s strange.” Rachel read on silently for a moment. “They burned the body, divided the ashes into six boxes. They sent each box with a different monk with instructions to bury the remains all over Europe in unmarked, twelve-foot-deep holes.”
Archard stood up slowly, his eyes alight. “Let’s go. We have to find that church.”
The Mini jostled down the dirt road, which was abandoned and overgrown with tall grass. Archard held a map open on his lap, stolen from the monks, with the location of Bartholomew’s estate marked in red.
“It should be around here somewhere,” he said, squinting out the window.
“There’s nothing here but trees and grass,” Rachel snapped.
“Stop the car. We’ll have to walk, search for ruins.”
Rachel jerked the wheel, maneuvered the car off the road. Archard left the map in the car. For a moment they stood in the field, the grass reaching for their waists.
“Do you feel that?” Archard whispered, his hand held out in front of him. The air rippled with potent magical energy.
“Sun and moon!” Rachel whispered back.
“This way!”
The witches trooped off into the trees with hurried, eager steps, allowing the cold call of Darkness to guide them forward. Soon the trees parted, and the witches stepped out into a field of more tall grass. But this field wasn’t empty.
Surrounding some barely visible stone ruins stood an army of monks—at least twenty—all standing in a line, elbow to elbow, faces set, brown robes flapping in the coastal wind. Archard glanced at Rachel. “Found the other monks,” he said snidely.
One brave monk at the center of the line, called out. “Leave now, witches, and we will spare your lives!”
Archard stepped forward and collided with an invisible barrier. He put his hands out, pressed against the thin layer of magic. He laughed. “I see you’ve learned a few tricks from the witches you’ve hunted over the years.”
The monk narrowed his wide-set eyes. His bald head and thin face dripped with sweat. “We learned to fight fire with fire.”
Archard couldn’t help the devious smile that spread on his face. With a short chuckle, he said, “Well, I highly doubt you’ve ever seen fire like mine.” The witch pressed his hands harder into the barrier. A few sparks spurted from his fingers, then ripples of orange-blue flames crawled outward along the wall, spreading through the air, eating away at the monks’ magic.
The monks watched, horrified, sweat-drenched.
As the flames finished their work, crackling down to the ground, Archard threaded his withering stare down each set of wide monk eyes, tasting the stink of their fear on the air. Savoring it. His mind groped for an elegant, devious way to end them, one that Bartholomew would approve. After all, the Dark magic in this place cried out, begging Archard to use it.
With the monks’ meager wall devoured, nothing but ocean-scented breeze stood between them and the witches. The leader swallowed once and stepped forward. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words never left his throat.
Archard raised his hands to the sides, palms skyward. Twenty small stones levitated under his command, lined up, ready for battle. A second later they hissed, hot red, glowing, and heated by his fire. The monks froze and eyed the stones. Archard’s lips twitched.
The witch let the moment linger, enough for the monks’ fear to build, and then he thrust his hands forward, sending the stones to their targets—twenty red hot stones, twenty monk heads. The lead monk barely had time to lift his hand before the stone struck his forehead, dead center, the blazing stone melting flesh and charring bone. Twenty stones hit the ground with a collective hiss in the grass behind the monks a second before the bodies crumpled. A small curl of steam rose from each pierced forehead.
Rachel’s laugh filled the humming air. “Very biblical, Archard.”
He merely straightened his suit coat. They stepped through the maze of bodies to the ruins of the church, which consisted of a few piles of stones half buried in the grass.
“See anything?” Archard called to Rachel as she walked the perimeter of the site. He could feel it—the ground nearly vibrated with energy—but where was it; how could he get to it? “It’s got to be underground. Look for some kind of opening.”
“It’s too overgrown.” Rachel stopped and looked up. “We need to clear the site.” Marching through the weeds, Rachel joined him, and together they lifted their hands to summon a whirlwind of magic to sweep over the sight. The air churned, spun, and then rocks, grass, dirt, and roots were ripped away, pushed back as easily as brushing crumbs off a table.
Left behind was a naked patch of dirt and one gaping hole in the center.
Chapter 15
Waxing Gibbous
July 1501
Bartholomew sat in a high backed chair, his long legs stretched out and his boots close to the crackling fire. His midnight eyes gazed intensely into the flames as his right hand rubbed absently at the leather cover of his grimoire. Resting in his lap, the tome was now more than a thousand years old, bursting at the seams with Dark spells and coveted secrets; yet it looked as pristine as the day the bookmaker finished it.
The witch found it easier to think with the book near him, and he currently faced a complicated decision—one that required delicate planning and the most intricate preparations of anything he had yet accomplished.
In his long life of one thousand and fifty four years, he’d been everywhere, seen everything, and shattered the boundaries of every type of magic imaginable. He was tired. Not physically tired—thanks to his healing abilities, which kept him eternally young and healthy, he
still looked and felt like a fit thirty-year-old—but soul-tired, exhausted by the tedium of living. Food had lost its flavor, women their beauty, his bed its comfort; even magic had grown dull, boring.
Though he had always called England home, his great country was also becoming a bore. And with the wedding of Arthur to Catherine of Aragon only a few months away, things were only going to grow more tedious. He’d looked Arthur’s brother, Henry, in the eyes and seen all the ridiculous trouble in his future.
The world currently had nothing to offer him.
It wasn’t only a loss of interest in life and the world. Even after so much time, he felt the loss of his wife, Brigid, as keenly as that September day when they’d burned her. The vengeful burning of the entire town had done nothing to cool his rage, and neither had time or magic. He’d found brief moments of distraction while working his brilliantly Dark spells, stomping down his enemies, and ruling the night; but the pain always resurfaced, an inevitable grievous sunrise.
Recently, with all pleasures dulled, the only thing left was his pain, his hurt, magnified by the gaping mouth of so much time. Brigid’s sweet voice haunted his dreams; her beautiful face plagued his thoughts. Several times in the last months, he’d woken in the middle of the night, sure he felt the heat of her body next to him, only to find an achingly empty bed. Though he’d searched diligently, no woman had been able to fill, or even lessen, the void she’d left in his heart. No one had been able to take her place, be his partner in magic and in life.
Loneliness was his only companion.
It was time for a change, a significant one.
Bartholomew sighed as he crossed one ankle over the other, the fire’s heat not as soothing as it had been in times past. He narrowed his eyes, the thoughts in his head shifting, moving into place. Flicking a finger toward the fire, he sent a burst of magic into the flames. Mumbling his own brand of scrying spell, he asked the fire to show him the possibilities of the future he was contemplating. Having long ago mastered the skills of prying information out of the Otherworld, the flames quickly answered his request.
Slowly, a picture formed: faces and places shaped of orange-yellow flames. For several minutes, he studied the fire. When he had seen enough, the decision was cemented.
With another flick of his fingers, the flames returned to normal. He opened his grimoire, flipped to the back, and magically added another page. He placed his hand on the fresh page, closed his eyes, and with a whispered spell, inscribed his thoughts and plans into the paper. He would record it, but no one beside himself would ever be able to see it.
With the details down on paper, Bartholomew stood. He pulled his cloak around his shoulders. Then, with the book tucked under his arm, he strode out into the night. Shadows gathered around him, folding him into their camouflage so that he passed through the pre-dawn twilight unseen and unheard.
The small church on his estate hunched low to the ground, stone crumbling and thatched roof sagging. The Dark witch eased inside and marched past the empty, rotting pews. He stepped over the fallen cross and altar and bent down to lift a hidden hatch in the floor.
The hatch opened, creaking in protest, and thudded loudly when Bartholomew dropped it back. Gathering his cloak around his legs, he stepped sure-footed down the stone steps into the stale, sour air. At the bottom of the stairs, he held out his palm, and a small flame burst to life to light the way.
Cobwebs hung like silk curtains along the walls and from the stone overhead, moving aside magically to allow his passage. He followed a narrow hall deeper into the earth, twisting and curving like the body of a snake, the air growing ever colder.
Finally, Bartholomew came to a thick wooden door, adorned with iron hinges and a large curved handle. In the center of the door, a single symbol had been etched into the wood: a five pointed star. Bartholomew extinguished his flame by snapping his fist closed and placed his hand against the star. After closing his eyes, he muttered a spell. A loud clack echoed off the rock walls, and then the door swung open with a nasty breath of stagnant air. He sniffed at it and walked over the threshold.
The room beyond was lit by dozens of fat, drippy candles. On the wall opposite the door was a shelf carved into the stone; on the shelf were eleven iron boxes—containing the stolen souls of nearly an entire town. A smile twitched to life on Bartholomew’s lips.
Seated in a simple, stiff wooden chair was an exquisite woman, a princess in a wasteland. Her body glowed strangely, emitting a supernatural light, like pearls in the moonlight. Curls of shiny, blue-black hair, like raven’s feathers, hung down her back to the floor, her face like a painting: creamy, flawless skin, with black eyes and blood-red lips. A dress, a slip of black, with many layers of fabric, like wisps of shadows, enhanced her ethereal quality. The smile she flung at Bartholomew was colder than the arctic air around them.
“Are they safe?” he asked, answering her smile with a chilling stare.
She nodded once, continued to smile stiffly, unnaturally.
He moved around her to the shelf, inspecting the boxes. The air filled with mournful whispers. At the last one, he stopped, opened his book, and flipped to the last page. Cradling the tome in one arm, he used his other hand to pull a small muslin pouch from the pocket of his cloak. In the pouch was a tangle of brown moss soaked in his blood, a lump of coal, and a moonstone carved with a skull and crossbones. He laid the pouch on the box.
The ethereal woman floated over to stand behind him, hovering like a rain cloud. He ignored her and looked to his book. With a wave of his hand a spell appeared on the last page, the words burning bright blue.
Reaching into his shirt, Bartholomew produced a simple necklace: a long, tarnished silver chain and a crude triangular pendant that had once belonged to his wife. He clenched the pendant in his fist and shut his eyes. The words of the spell trickled out of his mouth, raining down over the box of trapped souls. The pouch ignited with blue-green flames, illuminating Bartholomew’s hooded eyes. The flames burned bright for a few moments, consuming the offering. When there was nothing left to burn, the flames died, leaving behind a symbol scorched into the top of the box. The stacked and bisected ovals—the symbol of a True Healer and Bartholomew’s chosen mark.
A throb of painful cold spread down his body, starting at his head and hovering in the space behind his heart. With a grunt, he reached out to grip the edge of the stone shelf, almost dumping his precious grimoire to the floor. The sensation continued to grow, the pain increasing until he had to clench his teeth together and squeeze his eyes shut. For a moment, it felt like the cold would ice over his heart and stop it right then. He held the stone shelf so tightly that a chunk broke off and crumbled in his hand.
Then the cold left him, like the shutting of a door, the spell completed.
He straightened up, took a breath, and closed his grimoire with a satisfied snap.
When he turned, the woman gave him a questioning look, her hair draped around her like a cloak. Her eyes moved from the box to the necklace in his hand. Bartholomew stepped within inches of her, trapping her onyx eyes with his.
“One day a witch will come for these boxes. Allow him to take just that one. Nothing else. Understand?”
She blinked once and smiled her ghoulish grin.
Bartholomew looked back over his shoulder at the box, an odd twist of excitement in his gut, a burst of real feeling that he hadn’t experienced in ages. He spun away from the woman and made his way back up to the world.
Morning was just breaking in the eastern sky, cracking the night’s facade. Bartholomew smiled as he walked away to meet his death.
Chapter 16
Waning Half Moon
May—Present Day
Archard and Rachel stood over the black hole, looking down into the shadowy nothingness, the air unnaturally quiet in the field. The breath coming up from the hole smelled like Darkness. Rachel squatted down and squinted. “So, you think the boxed souls are down there?”
“I’m sure of
it.” Archard said, breathless and unable to slow the excited beat of his heart.
Rachel flicked her palm open, and a flame burst to life. She lowered it past the boundaries of the hole. “There are stairs. But who knows what kind of enchantments Bartholomew put in place to protect those boxes. It could be dangerous.”
Archard frowned. “Rachel, it’s not like you to hesitate.”
She snapped her fist closed and scowled up at him, her icy eyes hard. “This is Bartholomew we’re talking about. You should show some respect, too.”
A good point. “Then we need a revealing spell.” He looked around the field. “Give me your ring, then get me some of that pine.” Rachel slipped the antique, heirloom ring from her finger. It was made with one large, square blood-red garnet surrounded by tiny diamonds set in a thick gold band. She handed it to him and then went for the pine.
When Archard had the pine bough in hand—large, but not too big to carry—he stripped a small branch of its needles and slipped Rachel’s ring onto it. He held out his hand. “Knife,” he said without looking up. Rachel pulled the small knife from her boot, and handed it to him. Expertly, Archard carved a small, five-pointed star into the main branch.
“Ready?” he asked as he handed back the knife.
“Yes.”
Archard held the bough in both hands and closed his eyes. “Mighty Fire, power and dread, reveal the dangers now ahead.” Hot air swirled around them and the pine burst to life with brilliant white flames, pulsing and glowing.
“Follow me.” Archard stepped down into the hole, descending the dusty stone steps with Rachel close behind. At the bottom, illuminated by the fiery pine, a narrow passage curved away to the right. Archard held the bough at arm’s length, moving it back and forth through the air. “So far, no enchantments,” he said. Rachel frowned, pursing her pink lips.
The witches walked in single file along the passage. The stone walls were dry and draped with cob webs. The air smelled of dirt and stale time and grew colder with every step. Archard led with slow, cautious steps, both of them constantly watching the burning pine bough, waiting for the flames to flair red in warning.