Mortiswood: Kaelia Falling (Mortiswood Tales Book 2)

by Gina Dickerson

  Stop your trembling, what are you—The Dark One or a wimpy, gibbering human like the physician? What’s wrong with you? The fact this magic is able to work inside your tower is proof this isn’t an attack.

  His own reprimands provided him with a much needed kick up the metaphorical backside.

  ‘I demand you show yourself to me!’

  The steam on the mirror lessened, droplets ran rivulets down the glass which gradually widened until the glass was clear. Ripples waved across the normally flat surface, distorting Bran’s reflection. Suddenly the glass stilled and turned hazy before revealing an image of an unknown, wild landscape. For a moment Bran thought it was a projected image until he peered closer and saw the long, yellowed grass was moving as if by a breeze. He didn’t realise how close he was to the mirror until the tip of his nose touched the surface, instantly dissolving the image.

  Standing up straight, Bran lifted his shoulders. His eyes widened incredulously and he knew; felt it inside him as he had done back with Rosalie and the singing in Hel’s realm.

  ‘Mother,’ he whispered, touching the now innocuous looking glass.

  * * *

  Cadence sprung up from between a cluster of shrubbery as the tower door slammed shut behind Bran. ‘Where are you going?’

  With his coat tails flapping behind him, Bran charged blindly past Cadence. He had changed from his bloodied shirt into an amethyst sweater with a charcoal shirt beneath.

  ‘Bran!’ Cadence screamed. ‘You can’t leave me here all alone, I’m frightened!’

  Her cries fell on deaf ears as the necromancer pulled a motorbike out from between some trees. Ripping the cover off it, he ignored Cadence and jumped onto the machine, kicking it into life. In a flash he was already out of sight and Cadence was left alone. A noise in the undergrowth startled her and she jumped, turning to survey the moonlit area within the protective circle of the Barzian trees.

  A single tear slithered from the corner of her fire-red left eye and snaked a blue track down the pallor of her pale-blue cheek. Folding her arms across her chest, she strode back into the cluster of shrubs and lowered her tall frame into the small space between them. Hugging her knees to her chest she thought of Mortiswood Academy, of Jade, and Calix, and of her comfortable bed that was now empty, and broke down. All she had, she had given up for Thom, for immortality, but he had never wanted her, not properly. She had been a fool, a stupid little fool seduced by the promise of living forever. What was the use of immortality if she couldn’t enjoy it, if she had no-one to love her?

  ‘I’ll pay you back, Draugr, for your trickery!’ Cadence cried. ‘Ten-fold, I swear!’

  She rose, magnificently tall in her Draugr form and strode towards the line of trees. There was no point sniffling in the undergrowth. Hadn’t she been the top Sifar, the top everything at Mortiswood Academy?

  She nodded to herself, yes, she had.

  It was time to be top of The Salloki.

  * * *

  Chapter Eighteen

  Isle of Stone

  Father Peter straightened up from chopping flowers in the rectory garden. His back was no longer that of a flexible young man. Rubbing the base of his spine, he groaned. With trembling hands he scooped up the small bunch of flowers he had cut and made his way back towards his home, the rectory. His feet knew the route well, having walked it for many decades, and despite the uneven lay of the cliff-top garden, his steps remained steady.

  The back door to the rectory was open; the priest saw no reason to lock it. It was barely past six in the morning and the only sound to be heard was the morning song of birds. Father Peter took the flowers to the wooden table in the middle of his kitchen and dropped them into a vase he had already filled with water in preparation.

  ‘Happy birthday, Cassie.’ Eyes filling with tears, Father Peter fondly patted a framed photograph of Kaelia’s grandmother which he had also set out ready.

  The photograph had been taken when Cassie, and Father Peter, had both been teenagers. Fifty years ago now. Cassie’s lightly curled hair whipped around her face, playfully pulled by a coastal, summer breeze, her nose was crinkled in laughter, her eyes shone with the smile she gave the camera and the nineteen year old boy behind it.

  With a gnarled finger, the joints twisted by age, Father Peter wiped a tear from his cheek. He missed Cassie dreadfully, he always had but the pain was tangible now he couldn’t even speak to her. All of the years he had spent close to, yet not touching, Cassie had been pain enough but this was punishment. Punishment for the fact he had never stopped loving her. Even after he had left the island to become a priest, Cassie had always been in his thoughts. When he had returned to the island, the simple act of being able to talk with her every day had gone some way in papering over the Cassie shaped hole in his heart. In time Cassie had filled her life with her own family, beginning with the boy who grew to become Kaelia’s father. Yet, she had never left the island even when Father Peter had begged her to.

  ‘What a touching scene,’ interrupted a clipped voice from the doorway. ‘If I had a heart that could feel anything, I may shed a tear. Instead all I feel is contempt. This is what weakness looks like.’

  The priest nervously turned around, tears drying quickly at the sight of a tall, pale-blue skinned figure stooping to fit through the door. ‘Who are you?’ His hand flew to the gold chain hanging around his neck.

  ‘I am the leader of The Salloki.’

  ‘Draugr!’ The priest clasped an amber amulet hanging from the chain around his neck and clutched its warmness in his palm so hard it hurt his bones. ‘You return after all of these years. What do you want with me now? You already know who The Chosen One is.’

  Thom picked his teeth with his ragged fingernail. A morsel of gristly meat flew through the air and splatted against the glass of the framed picture of Cassie before sliding down the shiny surface to leave a sticky smear.

  ‘If you’re here to kill me,’ Father Peter said bravely, ‘do it. I always thought you would come back to finish me off but you never returned until now.’

  ‘I must admit the pleasure would be all mine. I would enjoy tearing you limb from limb. You and the old woman did a good job of protecting yourselves until the birth of The Chosen One. Over the years you have fought many puppets I sent your way. I almost admire you.’ Thom loomed above the quivering priest. ‘Unfortunately for me, I am not here to kill you. I have another use for you.’

  Thom pressed a finger against the priest’s forehead. The priest staggered backwards, pinned against the table by the Draugr’s strength. He screamed as heat from the Draugr’s finger melted his skin.

  ‘No!’ The priest’s eyes rolled back in his head.

  Skin bubbled and liquefied around Thom’s finger. The priest weakened and sagged against the table. The molten skin trickled down the priest’s forehead, dribbling into his eyes.

  ‘Can’t see!’ The priest gasped, his voice nothing but a mere tremble.

  ‘All in good time.’ Thom pushed his finger further into the old man’s forehead and twisted his fingernail against his skull bone. Through the pale-blue skin of his hand, Thom’s veins bulged. Glowing blue, his blood streamed out of his fingertip and into the priest’s head.

  The Father squirmed and screamed, pain lacing through his body as the Draugr’s poison twisted in evil barbs through his veins. His eyes rolled back, exposing the whites and foam frothed from between his gibbering lips. There was a popping sound when Thom dragged his fingernail out of the priest’s skin. Crimson blood stained the nail and Thom hungrily suckled it clean.

  ‘What a shame I cannot consume all of you, you taste surprisingly sweet for one so decrepit. Alas, that pleasure will have to wait for a while. You will be my slave, to do my bidding as I will you to. You are already changing. There is nothing you can do now to fight my blood from your body.’

  Father Peter slid to the floor. Clutching at his head he tried to open his mouth to speak but only managed a croak of pain. Wrenching h
is eyelids open, for they were partially stuck together from the molten skin, he opened his mouth, vomited, and convulsed several times before falling onto his side. Tracks of blue appeared beneath his papery skin, crawling from the puncture wound they meandered down his face and disappeared underneath his collar.

  ‘Very good.’ Thom nodded in approval before bending under the arch of the door and disappearing into the early morning.

  Left alone, the priest twitched silently on the kitchen floor. The chain around his neck snapped in his hand and the amber amulet rolled across the cold tiles, coming to stop by the back door. Struggling to focus, the priest made out another shape in the doorway. He watched the person lower a hand and retrieve the amulet.

  ‘You’ll need this.’ Footsteps echoed across the tiled floor and a pair of feet came to stop by the priest. ‘I see the Draugr reached you before me. Sometimes he’s so in tune with me I cannot help but think he really can read minds. Anyway, I digress. Now let me see if I can draw the poison out of you. I can’t promise this won’t hurt.’

  The priest screamed again. Twisted strings of violet light snaked into his body, lifting him from the floor. He struggled but could not free himself. The light streaming into him, burned. He floated up and over the head of the intruder, the light moving around his body so it was supporting him from underneath. It snapped his head and feet down, forcing his back into a painful arch.

  ‘Ready?’ The person controlling the light asked. ‘Don’t worry, it doesn’t matter either way.’

  The priest wailed as the Draugr poison reversed in his veins, retreating back to the point of puncture. His sight disappeared and then returned. Shooting out of the wound, the black magic squirmed from his head and travelled down the arm of the man controlling the violet light strings. Gently, the priest was lowered back to the ground and the violet light tentacles were extinguished.

  ‘Who are you?’ Father Peter trembled on the floor. Fearful perspiration chilled his body despite his layer of clothing.

  The man held up a silencing finger. The skin on his cheeks rippled beneath the surface with the barbs of the Draugr poison. Snapping his head back, he opened his mouth wide and oily liquid erupted from his mouth, showering the kitchen ceiling before cascading in an arc and eating into the floor tiles, leaving a steaming fizz behind.

  ‘Who are you?’ the priest repeated, worriedly dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief from his pocket.

  Without answering, the man strode over to the open door and beckoned to something. A shadowy figure crept into the room. Its face was featureless, its fingers and toes pointed and long. Tiny fragments broke off as it moved but fluttered rapidly back to be re-absorbed. All around it, the air turned colder and a faint crackling of dark frost formed on the floor beneath its shadowy feet.

  Father Peter shivered and shuffled backwards on his bottom, cowering underneath the table. ‘Oh, heaven’s, I know who you are now and you’re not doing that to me!’ He held his hands over his face and peeked through his fingers. ‘You will not possess me with an evil Draegarni spirit!’

  ‘There’s no use resisting.’ The man raised an eyebrow. ‘Even if you shove your foot in your mouth the Draegarni is going inside of you.’

  With an unearthly wail the shadowy figure flew at the priest and, despite the old man’s hands, slithered into the priest’s mouth. The priest choked, clawing at his neck before he coughed several times and sat up. A shadow flitted momentarily across his eyes; passing from one to the other the flicker turned the irises milky.

  The man crouched down by the priest and pressed the amber pendant into the old man’s gnarled hands. ‘You’ll need this wolf’s-eye amulet to gain entry to the Vallesm castle.’ The man smiled. ‘And you need to remember my name for I am now your master. I will see what you see and you will do as I order.’

  ‘What do you want?’ It was strange for the priest to speak with the shadow creature inside of him. He rubbed his eyes with balled fists, a strangely childish gesture for someone of his age, and the milky sheen across his irises lessened a fraction.

  ‘You will tell me everything the Vallesm are planning.’ The man smiled again. ‘But most of all you will keep me informed of Kaelia’s every move, you will become her confidante.’

  ‘What shall I call you?’

  ‘You can call me master if you wish.’ The man’s lips twitched as if he’d made a private joke. ‘Or I’ll settle for Bran. Oh,’ he said almost as an afterthought, ‘I’ll be leaving behind some people to ensure you do exactly as I command so don’t even think about trying to run away to exorcise the Draegarni.’

  * * *

  His dark coat tails billowed behind him as Bran swept from the small kitchen to outside. Turning up the collar of his coat against the early morning chill, he beckoned to the four figures lurking on the grass.

  ‘Come closer,’ he instructed. ‘You first.’

  A woman with dirty blonde hair stepped forwards. She twitched with every step she took. Her nails were long and sharp, her eyes as black and shiny as flint. From her back a red glow shimmered; a ghostly apparition of the woman herself, half trapped to the back of the physical body and screaming silently. Bran ignored the screaming soul of the human woman, he knew no-one other than he and other magically blessed people could actually see the tormented apparition. Instead, he spoke to the Dybbuk demon controlling the human body.

  ‘Watch the old man; ensure he does as he is told.’ He nodded to the Dybbuk and the woman scuttled to one corner of the building.

  The second demon, this time possessing the body of a young man with several facial piercings, scuttled to Bran. Again, the screaming ghostly soul of the real human writhed from its physical back, half locked in torment to the body but half forced out to make space for the demon inside.

  ‘Do not let anyone close to the old man,’ Bran told the demon.

  The pierced demon nodded, and hurried to join the blonde haired Dybbuk. Bran gestured to the two remaining demons.

  ‘You know what to do.’ He nodded at the two other demons, ensuring they returned to stand guard at the opposite end of the priest’s home.

  Buttoning his coat, Bran raced super-humanly fast down the steep incline leading away from the church and to the rocky shore below. Jumping from the cliff he landed on his feet, knees bent, in the damp sand. He turned and looked back up at the sheer, grey cliff, unable to conceal a satisfied smile.

  * * *

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Vallesm Castle

  Flames danced in the mouth of the huge fireplace, firelight flickering reflections over the ruffled, burnt-amber fur of the mighty Vallesm lying before it so the lines between the two blurred. The wolf’s chest rose and fell rhythmically but its eyes remained closed.

  Calix, arms folded across his chest, paced back and forth. ‘It’s been hours. How much longer until Bryson awakes?’

  Gunnarr rose from where he had been drinking coffee at the long table across the room and stepped in front of Calix, blocking his pacing. ‘Have patience, Bryson will awake once he is fully healed. Without Kaelia’s powers we have to let nature take its course.’

  Calix clenched and unclenched his fists, his muscular arms ram-rod straight at his sides. ‘Kaelia has been missing for a whole day. I’ve tried a tracking spell with Rosealrium oil and even that didn’t detect a trace of her. How much longer am I expected to sit around doing nothing? This isn’t like her, something must be wrong. It’s Thom, he’s behind it. He’s always behind everything.’

  Gunnarr shrugged. ‘I know you’re itching to chase after The Salloki but you can’t go anywhere without Kaelia. We don’t even know where The Salloki live so how are we supposed to find them without her? You can’t find out where they hide.’

  Calix let out an exasperated sigh. ‘Why, because I’m normal?’

  ‘No,’ Gunnarr replied patiently. ‘Because no-one outside of The Salloki know where those leeches live.’

  ‘I can’t believe no-one knows. This i
s ridiculous. There must be a spell or something we can do to find The Salloki. Or are you content to sit around, stuffing your face until Bryson finally wakes up? Because I’m not. I’m sick to death of being useless. I don’t care if I’m only human; I’m going to find out where The Salloki live!’

  ‘And then what?’ Gunnarr demanded. ‘What will you do if you find them?’

  Calix squared his shoulders. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Now you’re the one being ridiculous.’ Gunnarr laughed. ‘You can’t defeat them, that’s Kaelia’s job.’

  ‘I can try!’ Calix thumped his thighs. ‘At least then I’ll be doing something. We’re supposed to be here to help Kaelia. I don’t see much helping going on at the moment!’ A burning log from the fire shot out of the hearth and, catching sight of it Calix ducked. Wide eyed, he patted his hair. ‘Hey!’

  ‘Stop complaining and I won’t have to do it again!’ Jade’s eyes glowed with fire. She stood up from where she had been sitting in silence, unnoticed in a high backed chair facing the dancing flames. With her hands splayed, white-blonde hair streaming behind her, she moved her arm and the still blazing log shot back into the fireplace, sending out sparks and hisses. ‘You’re not the only one who has lost someone. We’re all frustrated but there’s no need to shout at us, we’re in this together!’

  Calix’s shoulders softened. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. I know you’re missing Cadence.’

  ‘The more I’ve thought about it, the angrier I am with her. If she had been a true friend she would’ve let us stop her Draugr transformation and stayed human. She’s a selfish cow and I’m better off without her!’

  Calix struggled with his emotions but they won and his face crumpled. ‘I miss her! First Cadence left and now Kaelia’s disappeared...like her mother did. See, Gunnarr, I told you it is Thom, he’s behind this. He won’t stop until he’s destroyed everything and everyone. I bet he doesn’t even care about Cadence, she’s just another thing for him to use!’