Sorcerers of the Nightwing (Book One - The Ravenscliff Series)

by Geoffrey Huntington

  He withdrew a bottle of red wine from the small bar in the center of the room. He uncorked it and poured two glasses. He handed one to Devon, who looked at it funny.

  “Go ahead, Devon. A little wine doesn’t hurt. In France boys far younger than you drink wine the way most kids drink Coca Cola.”

  Devon took a sip. He’d snuck beer before, but never wine. At first it tasted bitter to him, warm and dry. But after a few more sips he began to like it: thick and soothing, rich and fruity.

  They sat on opposite sofas, facing each other. Below them the waves crashed against the rocks as the sun dropped lower in the sky. Devon wasn’t sure where to begin, and the wine suddenly made him feel a little fuzzy, as if he couldn’t quite remember why he came to visit Rolfe Montaigne.

  “To ghosts and other dangers,” Rolfe toasted, holding up his glass of wine. “So tell me what it’s been like these past few weeks.”

  “Intense.” Devon tried to think through his words. “I feel I’m real close to finding out stuff about myself.”

  “Yourself? Say more.”

  “Finding out my past. Who I am.”

  Rolfe nodded. “Ah, yes. Your father’s deathbed revelation of your adoption. So what are you finding?”

  Devon looked at him fiercely. “You said you saw your share of ghosts when you lived at Ravenscliff.”

  Rolfe shrugged. “Anyone who spends any amount of time there eventually does.”

  “What do you know about Jackson Muir?”

  “That he was an evil man. And that his evil did not die with him.”

  Devon could tell he was being deadly serious. As if to punctuate his words, the first flickering of silent lightning appeared on the horizon over the sea.

  “I can vouch for that,” Devon agreed. “I’ve seen him. Several times.”

  “Where?”

  “In the cemetery. In the East Wing. And other places, too …”

  “Amanda’s a fool,” Rolfe said, more to himself than Devon.

  Suddenly Devon was aware of the woman from upstairs, Roxanne. She had come down with a platter of strawberries, sliced pears, French bread and cheese. She looked into Devon’s eyes.

  “You’re hungry,” she said.

  He was. But how did she know?

  “Thank you, Roxanne,” Rolfe said.

  She smiled.

  “Yeah,” echoed Devon. “Thanks.”

  She nodded, the fire reflecting against her chocolate-colored skin and dancing in her strangely golden eyes. She moved soundlessly back up the stairs.

  “It’s like she could read my mind,” Devon said, popping a strawberry in his mouth.

  “Roxanne’s very perceptive,” Rolfe told him, smiling after her.

  Devon sliced a wedge of cheese and broke off a piece of the French bread. “So getting back to what we were talking about,” he said, mouth full, “why do you say Mrs. Crandall is a fool?”

  Rolfe sipped his wine. “She should never have brought you, an innocent kid, into that house.” He moved to stand before the glass, looking out at the roiling sea below. In the distance a very low tremble of thunder rolled across the waves.

  He can be trusted, the Voice told him. Any fear, any apprehension Devon may have felt earlier about this strange man, vanished. He could tell that Rolfe not only had answers, but that he was being straight enough with him that he might just share some of them. Finally—someone being straight with him.

  Devon approached him, biting into a pear slice. “Why is the East Wing closed off?”

  Rolfe looked over at him. “Devon, you’re a good kid. But you need to go to Amanda—”

  “I have. I’ve tried. She won’t say anything. She won’t admit what she knows.”

  Rolfe finished his wine, shaking his head.

  “Look,” Devon said. “I am entitled to this knowledge. This is my past, my history.”

  Rolfe studied him. “Why do you think it’s yours, Devon? We’re talking about two separate things here: what Amanda may or may not know about your real parents, and what she’s not saying about the ghosts of Ravenscliff.”

  “I think they’re connected,” Devon said plainly.

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Rolfe, that car that tried to run us off the cliff on the way over here—that was no kid behind the wheel.”

  He could see in his eyes that Rolfe knew this bit of information as well, that he’d been shielding it, thinking Devon blind to it.

  Rolfe was studying him. “How do you know that?”

  “I’m not as innocent as you might think,” Devon told him. He finished off the last of the strawberries. “You know about the demons, don’t you, Rolfe? You know about the bolted door in the East Wing.”

  Rolfe’s eyes narrowed as they locked onto Devon’s. “Who are you?” he asked very softly.

  “That’s what I want to find out.”

  Rolfe just looked at him.

  Show him, came the Voice.

  Devon lifted his left arm, gesturing with his hand. He had a pretty good sense his powers would work. And sure enough: a book lifted off of Rolfe’s shelf and sailed smoothly through the air into Devon’s grasp. Rolfe was watching all along, expressionless.

  “Registry of the Guardians of the Portal,” Devon read, looking down at the title. “There’s another copy of this book in the East Wing.”

  “Yes,” Rolfe said, taking the book from him. “Yes, indeed there is.” He hadn’t taken his eyes off Devon. “Let’s go sit by the fire, shall we?”

  They settled down into two large overstuffed chairs. The fire snapped in the hearth. Outside the rain pecked hesitantly against the window panes, as if loath to disturb them. The thunder grumbled, but it was still miles away.

  “You’ve known others with powers like mine, haven’t you, Rolfe?”

  “I have.” The older man was still studying him, as if trying to understand. “How long have you known of your abilities? And who else knows you have them?”

  “I’ve known ever since I was a kid,” Devon replied. “And so far, besides you, only Cecily knows for sure. Some of the kids at Gio’s saw me wrestle a demon, but they think it was just adrenaline.”

  “They saw you wrestle a demon?”

  “Well, punch it out, really. I had to. It had attacked a guy.”

  Rolfe’s face went pale. “Then they’ve returned,” he said quietly after several seconds of silence. “I’ve sensed it. Tonight, that car cinched it for me. But if what you say is true, there are more than I imagined. If they’re randomly attacking kids—”

  “I don’t think it was random. It spoke to me. It was trying to draw me out. I was its real target. But why, Rolfe? That’s what I want to know. All my life, these things have been trying to get at me. My dad did his best, but a couple times they got through. And since coming here, I’ve been fighting them off right and left.”

  “And apparently winning, if you’re sitting here,” Rolfe observed, admiration in his voice.

  “Yeah.” Devon felt some pride himself. “Yeah, I’ve done okay.”

  “You know what you are, don’t you, Devon? Your father must have explained it to you.”

  The boy sat forward in his chair. “That’s just it, Rolfe. I don’t know. My father never told me, except to say that I was stronger than anything out there, and that I shouldn’t be afraid.”

  Rolfe made a face. “That’s odd. I assume your father was a Guardian, and it’s a Guardian’s job to teach.” He seemed to consider something briefly. “Your real parents must have entrusted you to his care. Given that he was a Guardian, he’d understand your powers. But why they wouldn’t want you to know of your heritage, I can’t imagine. It’s a proud heritage, noble—”

  “Whoa. Can we do a little rewinding here? My heritage? Guardian?” He looked at Rolfe with eyes wide. “Can you start from the beginning? Please?”

  Rolfe smiled a little. He looked down at the book on his lap.

  “Your father is in here, isn’t he?” he asked. “
In this book?”

  Devon nodded. “Only it can’t be my dad. It was a different name, and the picture was from more than a hundred years ago.”

  “Point him out to me,” Rolfe said, handing the book across to Devon.

  Devon flipped through the old musty pages. He found Thaddeus Underwood. He held the book open facing Rolfe and pointed. “This one,” he said.

  Rolfe’s eyes widened. “Thaddeus was your father?”

  “You knew him?”

  Rolfe looked from the book up to Devon’s face, then back again.

  “Oh, yes,” he said, “I knew him.” He stood, pouring himself another glass of wine. The rain came harder now, rat-a-tat-tatting against the glass. Lightning flashed on the horizon. Another Misery Point storm was under way.

  “But this can’t be my father,” said Devon. “It’s from another century.”

  “Guardians live a long time. They have to. They teach and train and protect generations. How old did your father say he was?”

  “When he died he was fifty-seven.”

  “Add at least a couple hundred to that, my boy,” Rolfe said, grinning.

  “That’s impossible,” Devon replied, sputtering.

  Rolfe’s grin widened. “As impossible as your levitating that book from the shelf? As impossible as wrestling demons at pizza joints?”

  Devon tried to comprehend this new information about his father. “Then March wasn’t my father’s real last name,” he mused out loud. “He probably took it because it was the month I was born.” He looked suddenly back over at the other man. “How can a Guardian—whatever that is—live to be so old? My dad was human. He had to be. Rolfe, please tell me what you know.”

  Rolfe sighed. “He was human, Devon. All Guardians are. But their bloodline is ancient … dating back to the early days of sorcery, when they were given special gifts. And in turn, they teach, train, protect …”

  “Teach who, Rolfe?”

  Rolfe seemed not to hear him. His eyes were far away, remembering. “When I was a boy, Thaddeus Underwood was the greatest Guardian in the Americas. I worshiped him. He was like a grandfather to me—a wise, generous, kind old grandfather. My own father thought the Sun rose and set around him.” He paused. “We all loved Thaddeus. Mr. Muir. Edward. Amanda.”

  “He was here? My father was at Ravenscliff?”

  “Yes. For a time. He had come to train my father. You see, my father was a Guardian, too.” Rolfe looked at Devon, as if trying to see something there, something he might recognize. “Though I can’t imagine for the life of me who your parents could have been. I know of no one who might have placed you with Thaddeus as a Guardian.”

  “They had to have been here, in Misery Point,” Devon insisted. “Why else would Dad send me here after he died? And why didn’t he ever tell me anything about all this?”

  “I don’t know the answers to those questions. But Thaddeus Underwood never did anything without a reason. He was far too sharp for that. Yes, I’m quite sure he wanted you to discover your heritage here—but I can’t fathom his reasoning for keeping it from you himself. There are no Guardians here any longer, no one left who could teach you in the way he could …”

  Devon had stood to face Rolfe near the windows again. “Rolfe, I’m confused. I don’t understand what a Guardian is. Guardians of the Portal … what’s a portal? Is it like that door in the East Wing?”

  “Very perceptive, Devon. Yes, exactly like that door.” He smiled a little sardonically. “In more common language, they’re referred to as Hell Holes.”

  “Yes,” Devon said. “Like my closet back home. Hell Holes.”

  Rolfe looked at him compassionately. “They took root in your closet? You poor kid.”

  “But why, Rolfe? That’s what I want to know. Why me?”

  Rolfe studied him sadly. “You really don’t know, do you?”

  “No,” Devon told him, his voice imploring the truth.

  Rolfe set down his wine glass on the window seat. He placed his hands on Devon’s shoulders and looked him square in the eyes.

  “Devon March, you come from a long and ancient line, a proud and noble heritage,” he told him. “Devon March, you are a Sorcerer of the Order of the Nightwing.”

  The thunder came then, fittingly.

  It took Devon several seconds to respond. The word had sent chills up his spine. He felt his skin tingle from head to foot.

  “The Order of the Nightwing,” Rolfe repeated.

  In his mind Devon again saw those books in the East Wing of Ravenscliff. The word had given him pause then, too. Nightwing. He knew without even asking that the Muirs had been Nightwing as well: he recalled the ravens, black as night, that had once lived in their house.

  “Nightwing,” Devon breathed. “Sorcerer—warlock! Just like Jackson Muir.”

  Rolfe looked angry. “Oh, no. Not like him. Jackson Muir defiled the ancient honorable tradition of the Nightwing. The tradition taught to him by his father, the great Horatio Muir. Jackson used his powers for evil. That made him an Apostate—a renegade necromancer, shunned by all Nightwing around the globe.”

  It sounded like the stuff of fairy tales to Devon—stuff he might have read about in comic books. It was hard to fathom, yet it was oddly reassuring too. Whatever this Nightwing was, he was a part of it—one of them. For the first time in his life, he felt connected to something bigger than he was.

  “So there are more of these … these … Nightwing people?”

  Rolfe smiled. “Oh, yes. The Nightwing can be found all over the world. Their history dates back to ancient days, when the first Nightwing learned the secrets of the old elemental Knowledge—and tapped the power of the demons for their own use, for good.”

  Devon laughed. “This is just too freaky.”

  “I thought so, too, once. But I can remember, as a boy, watching my father and old Mr. Muir corral a demon in the courtyard at Ravenscliff. I watched as Mr. Muir twisted it and pummeled it, all without ever even using his hands, only his mind. I watched as the filthy thing was sent back to its Hell Hole—and I knew then that I was witnessing greatness, that I had been given a great privilege, to see in action the magic of the Nightwing.”

  “So the Muirs—all of them—are part of it,” Devon said. “The whole family. I was reading about them, about Horatio—” He looked over at Rolfe. “So Mrs. Crandall has to know this?”

  “Of course she knows. But—” Rolfe made a face, clearly troubled by a memory. “It was a long time ago. Terrible things happened. Sorcery and magic were banned from that house.”

  “Because of Jackson, right?”

  Rolfe nodded. “He was known as the Madman.”

  Devon shivered at the word. “The accounts say he left Ravenscliff for Europe …”

  “Yes. He had broken with his father, begun using his powers for his own gain.”

  “So he was considered an Apo—what was it you said?”

  “An Apostate. A member of the Nightwing order who rejects the power of good. Who harnesses the power of the demons for his own gain.”

  Devon was having a hard time keeping up. He steadied himself against the table. “But Jackson came back to Ravenscliff,” he said. “He came back and married Emily …”

  “Yes, he did. He convinced his brother he’d reformed. Oh, Jackson was very canny. Shrewd. Poor old Randolph Muir learned too late how shrewd Jackson was.”

  Devon remembered the clipping of Emily’s death. “I saw your father’s name in an article about Emily Muir’s death. Is it true that she jumped? Because of Jackson?”

  Rolfe folded his arms across his chest. “You have been doing your homework. I was quite young when Emily Muir died. But I remember her as a sweet, sad young woman. When she failed to get pregnant, Jackson began cheating on her. It sent her into a deep depression.”

  “So she killed herself.”

  Rolfe nodded.

  “But Jackson grieved for her,” Devon said. “That’s what Cecily told me. He erected that m
onument to her. So he couldn’t be all bad—not if he loved her.”

  Rolfe laughed. “Well, aren’t we the young romantic. But believe me, Devon. There was nothing but evil in the heart of Jackson Muir. When Emily couldn’t give him a child, he destroyed her.”

  Devon looked off at the furious sea. “Why was he so keen on having a kid?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? So his line could take back Ravenscliff. His evil would have lived on in another generation. A child of Jackson’s would have guaranteed the destruction of Randolph’s line. Amanda, Edward, Cecily, Alexander … none would be here today.”

  Devon thought of something. “Did he have a kid with somebody else then, other than his wife? With whomever he was cheating with?”

  “No. That was his great regret. Jackson died without an heir.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, Devon, I’m sure.”

  The boy had walked over to the bookcase. He touched a skull that stared out at him from the shelves. He felt a little electric shock.

  He turned back to Rolfe. “Why did Jackson want to be master of Ravenscliff so bad?”

  “Horatio Muir built the house on one of the largest Hell Holes in the Western hemisphere. He drew his power from a vast and powerful resource. Jackson wanted control of the house and the portal—which, as the eldest son, he believed was his birthright.”

  “So a Nightwing gets his power—from the Hell Hole?”

  Rolfe managed a smile. “Listen, Devon. This is all too complex for me to just sum up quickly for you. Maybe in one of my father’s books …”

  “But I’ve got to know. Does Jackson control the demons? Is he the one who’s been sending them against me?”

  Rolfe sighed. “Perhaps Jackson is in league with some of them, but I don’t know the answer fully. There are many Hell Holes, Devon. Some have been sealed over. Some are under the control of Nightwing—and some are open. ‘Earth’s gaping wounds,’ Thaddeus used to call them. From them many creatures have escaped over the centuries, and these things walk among us. Some are crafty. Some are just plain stupid. But all have one intent: to release their brethren and once again be permitted free rein upon the earth.”