“So what do they do?”
Jessie shook her head. “Depends on the person. Some learn on their own. Some let it go. Some transfer schools. Some gather up and sort of…make up conspiracies.”
It made me sad. Thinking of Jen like that. She must have been hateful to me because she’d known that I was one of the ones not left out in the cold. But I knew all too well how she felt. The Hallow who didn’t practice necromancy. I was as in the cold as she was—in my way. But she’d have never seen it that way.
And I couldn’t blame her. It hit me all the sudden—how very lucky I was. I opened my potion workbook and took a picture of one of the recent pages and sent it to my mother. Jessie and Chrysie watched me as I did but neither asked a question. And I didn’t know how to explain. My mother and I had poured over my potions—examining the ingredients. She didn’t have the same love of potions as I did. She was good—crazy good—don’t get me wrong. But for me, it was different. For me it was a passion.
For her—my snake mother—she loved me. And I was sure she missed me. And she missed those conversations over potions. As I did. It was one of the few things we did naturally and happily. And suddenly…suddenly, I wanted to ask my mother for advice. But…I couldn’t. Not yet.
I didn’t trust her not to turn it on me. And…gods and monsters…that made me sad.
CHAPTER 7
“Oh Hecate,” I said as I walked into the third pseudos hangout. The first had been a common room near one of the dorms with several TVs and game systems. The second had been a little burger place with a room in the back that several of them worked at. This was a smorgasbord of businesses. A comedy club that did shows Friday and Saturday nights. A little church used the building on Sundays. And during the week it showed old movies and had board games in the basement. There was popcorn on the floor and it smelled of old grease and dust. None of the things that the place offered were things I had ever done. This building was as foreign as visiting Mongolia would have been. Except for one thing.
Jessie and Chrysie looked at me, around this place—not feeling what I felt—and then they looked back to me.
“Don’t you feel that?”
“No,” Chrysie said simply and took a bite of a Snickers Bar. Jessie closed her eyes, took a deep breathe, and focused her magic.
“This one,” Jessie said. She opened her eyes and looked at me for a long time all weighty and ominous.
“What?” I looked at Chrysie for a clue, but it seemed neither of us had a clue about anything—ever.
“You’re really good,” Jessie said. “You felt that ghost the second we walked through the door. Without focusing. Without anything.”
Chrysie and I looked at each other and back to Jessie. The bafflement on our faces must have shown clearly.
“That’s not normal.”
My mouth twisted and I struggled for something to say. I didn’t know what normal was—not when it came to necromancy. People talked about my family like they were all brilliant at this stuff or something, but I wasn’t. It didn’t matter what I noticed about the world with magic or without. I was not brilliant about necromancy magic.
“You guys aren’t welcome here.” The voice was from the shadows to the side and at first, I thought it was the ghost, but it was a kid speaking from the door of an office.
He wasn’t really a kid any more than I was. I wasn’t used to thinking of myself as an adult. But the guy stood there—absolutely normal—in jeans and a purple tee with some sports name on it. He was tall, lanky, and acne prone. He seemed really upset but there was something about his upset. And then I figured it out. He knew what we were. We weren’t welcome because we were witches. It made me feel oddly ill. I had never been hated for what I was before. Not like this. This blanket disgust.
At home, people didn’t like me because my mother was Autumn Jones. But that was fairly well deserved in my opinion. Usually, I either didn’t care, or I was able to win them over. It was a concrete reason for the dislike. Not this abstract thing where I was a part of a group that he didn’t like so, therefore, he didn’t like me. Hecate. I was irritated. But also—I was…intrigued.
“What if we want to see a movie?” I was genuinely curious.
“Movies don’t start until eight. You want to see whatever Cary Grant flick they’re showing today—come back then. Right now—leave.”
“Isn’t it Sunday? We want to go to church.”
His eyes narrowed. “Church was this morning, witch.”
I cocked my head and my eyes narrowed. “Am I supposed to be offended by your statement of a fact?”
“You’re a Hallow.”
“Yup.” I was the one on my toes now, mirroring Chrysie’s dancing stance. There was so much hate in that statement. “Hallow, witch, looking for some information.”
“And you think I am going to help you, witch?”
“No, I think you’re going to help yourself, normal.”
His eyes narrowed when I called him a normal. But a pseudo? I wasn’t using that term. That was too mean. Even for me.
“You think you’re better than me? You think you’re special?”
“No,” I said it flatly. He didn’t get to push his hatred off on me. I admitted to myself that I wasn't particularly likable. But let’s be real…I am not that likable. I’m a nosy, nerdy, bookish witch with family issues and so much baggage. My—as Chrysie called it—moral compass was flawed at best. And I was being driven by guilt.
Not love. Not caring. Not whatever. I didn’t care that much about Jen. I doubted I’d think of her in a year or two. Hecate’s eyes, I was such a cow. I didn’t mean to be. I didn’t…I wasn’t this person I was pretending to be. I am not the Princess Knight of the Dead and Undead. I am not the hero. I am…gods…I didn’t know what I was. But I was sure about that I wasn’t the hero.
“Look, normal,” I said hatefully because I hated myself at that moment. And then…I realized. “Why you sneaky bastard.”
“Excuse me?”
But I wasn’t paying attention to the normal. I dropped to my knees, pulled my messenger bag forward, and withdrew the chalk I kept with me.
The moment I started drawing, the guy stepped forward to stop me, but Chrysie took hold of his arm--and he couldn't wiggle away. A baby vampire was still stronger than a normal human boy. He was objecting, but I wasn't listening. I drew with chalk that I had made myself with witch-power embedded right inside. I might not be that great of a necromancer, but I was badass at witchcraft.
I moved like lighting. I moved with the skill of being drilled in pentacles, and I moved with a will that was driven by being entirely spooked. I could feel a pressure along my magical senses. It was dark and it made the baby hatred the normal boy was throwing at me--it made it seem like a soft breeze, but this--this thing I was feeling. It was a tornado. But a tornado of sneaky magical pressure.
I drew the pentacle and motioned the other three inside. Jessie and Chrysie came in quickly. They trusted me. My senses. This seemingly mad move. The normal kid stood across from us, arms crossed, hate in his gaze. But adorable, perky vampire Chrysie simply reached out and yanked him inside. The pentacle was a simple star inside of a circle. But it was drawn with magic and will and created for protection. I sealed it with runes, more magic and then, in proto-Romanian, I ordered, “Reveal.”
The thing that was utterly terrifying wasn’t the ghost. It was the spells binding the ghost. Magic--magic made right--it provides layers of depth to the world. You could look at a friend and get insight into who they were. You could see pieces of their soul because magic allowed you to see deeper. I glanced at Chrysie, she was brilliant blue light woven with threads of angry red and black. The colors that didn't belong must be the vampirism. And Jessie--gods and monsters--Jessie was like the light of the sun--shining rays of pinks and yellows. She was earnest and filled with curiosity. Suddenly I knew why she knew more about magic than I. She was curiouser.
And I could accept that.
The normal guy--he was blues of sadness and grays of frustration. But I liked him. For his colors were brilliant and pure and full of passion. He was the type of guy who learned to speak Klingon and could quote pieces of a hundred movies.
But the ghost--the ghost should be faded colors of a living human. Colors that had been thinned out by death. But instead--those colors were gone and all that was left was shades of black. Which didn't seem to be possible, but it was. Shades of black and everything that I could read from him was madness and anger and horror and I wanted to run away as I had never wanted to run away before.
Whatever the ghost had been before--it was destroyed now. I didn't know if crossing the thinning would allow it to be restored, or if the essence of what had once been a person was gone forever. All for what? To fuel some sort of spell? And that fueling of that spell--well...it must make the ghost hungry. Hungry enough to drive poor, helpless kids to kill themselves.
“Oh sweet Hecate,” Jessie whispered as the normal kid said, “What is that?”
“It’s spells on the ghost,” I answered. “That’s not normal right?”
“That,” Jessie said softly, “Is why we need a keeper. That’s the sign of a necromancer gone wrong.”
I didn’t care that the normal kid was hearing everything. Maybe I should have, but I only had so much caring in me and right now, it was wrapped up in that ghost. I had been saved once by ghosts. Free agent ghosts who had seen their kin in me and saved me from a power that I could not have fought on my own. Gods. Monsters. Ghosts. Or necromancers. I didn’t care.
I had seen ghosts before. They looked like living people. But less focused, a little blurry at the edges. But when I looked at this ghost, I saw something of horror. I found an outline of a person filled in with shades of black terrifying. I found that the essence of a soul could be destroyed in this way. And I didn’t need a moral compass to know what I had to do.
I called my mother.
* * * * *
“Veruca,” Mother answered in that cool, cold voice.
“Mother,” I replied in my carefullest tone.
“Lovely afternoon in Connecticut today.”
“I need your help,” I said. There was so much weight in that statement.
“One has to wonder,” Mother said. “Whether your previous text message was a softening up tool.”
She couldn't see what I could see. So I told the quick, stark truth. “I was missing you.”
I could hear each shaky breath of my friends as we waited for my mother to choose her course.
“Why did you call me?”
“Because, mother, you are the Keeper of the St. Angelus Thinning, and I don't trust any other necromancer.”
Jessie gasped, and Chrysie choked. Even the guy whose name I didn’t know seemed to feel the weight of that statement.
“Why would you say that?”
“Being a keeper killed your parents. Your Aunt. It killed and took everything you loved. I can see why you decided to walk away.”
She didn’t reply. She didn’t have to. And she wasn’t one to give anything away. Not even her feelings to her daughter.
“You tried to stop the creature that killed your family. You failed. For some reason, you didn’t die.”
Again with the silence. Again with leaving me in the dark alone. If we hadn't been in the safety of the pentacle, I'd have been freaking out. I was trying to be patient since there was no pushing Mother.
“So why would you call me? If you’re right, then I’m the keeper who abandoned her calling.”
“You’re the kid who failed to take on the very creature who had murdered her parents.”
I knew she wouldn’t reply to that. But I let her feel what I’d said and remember how she had felt.
And then I told her the truth, “The key word there is kid.”
“You beat the monster when you were younger than I.” Mother was without sympathy. Even for herself.
“No, I didn’t. I survived the monster while our ancestor's spirits rose from their very graves and took vengeance. There’s a huge difference. I am no super witch. I’m not better than you when you were my age.”
The weighty, communication-filled silences were killing me.
“You are though. I made sure of it.”
Sweet Hecate. What did she mean by that?
“Veruca,” Mother said. And her voice was so very soft and very tired. Usually, you had no idea what my mother was feeling. Even now, I wasn’t sure. But normally you assume she was without feelings. Today, their existence was coming through loud and clear. “You don’t want to be the keeper.”
Her statement wasn’t a question or judgment. She knew what I wanted. I wanted to be good at witchcraft—regular witchcraft—not necromancy. I’d already worked so hard. I didn’t want to change focuses. I loved what I did now. Being a keeper—it was as much about sleuthing and fighting as it was about witchcraft. I…those things weren’t me. Not one little bit.
“I don’t,” I said it so very firmly. And I was being honest, so I explained what I was doing at that moment. “But I am not capable of leaving this theater and this ghost being tortured. Free all of us, Mother. Please. Plus we are clearly in danger, and I don't know what to do."
Her voice was all business as she said, “Let me see.”
It wasn't normal for parents to use their children's eyes. It wasn't normal for parents to tap into the ability to do so and teach their children magic. It wasn't normal to be able to do something this in-depth across the country. We weren't normal, so I loaned her the use of my eyes.
“There,” she said, and I could see what she did. The way the spells were not laid onto the ghost, but the building it haunted.
"Is it harder to build or to destroy?” Mother asked. Because she couldn't just tell me.
But I already knew the answer. And I knew how to destroy spells. My mother had taught me. I smiled—and I let her feel my malice and decisiveness.
And when she smiled back—across the continent on a lovely little island in the Puget Sound—I knew she was smiling her cold, precise, vengeful smile. Today—the necromancer who laid these spells would be out-witched. And then I would go hunting.
I should probably take note of how I looked forward to this hunt. But that was the need for justice. It wasn’t, I reminded myself, what I wanted all the time.
Mother didn’t tell me to be careful. She didn’t need to. She had long since taught me to be careful. And to be dangerous. She had given me the skills that made me safe inside of this pentacle, and she had given me the skills to deconstruct this spell that had manipulated the ghost and cleanse this theater.
I could feel her imparting thought, and it made us both sad—there was no returning this ghost to what it had been. The crime had been done. I didn’t know how long this ghost had managed to live sipping off of humor and sadness inspired by movies and the victory of a game or quiet faiths of those who came to church here—but that ghost was gone.
Only its hunger was left.
CHAPTER 8
I sent my mind questing towards the edges of the spell that had been laid on the building. I needed to find the end of the spell. It would have been laid with magic, power, and will. It was so hard to learn magic. There were so many details and layers.
It was so very easy to destroy when you knew where the weakness of the spell was.
And there…there it was. I tugged, felt the spell quiver, and watched the ghost. It rose, screaming soundless screams. I felt the need to run, to cower, to hide, to escape. But those were the effects of the ghost. I hadn’t run from the legion-possessed necromancer that had killed my grandparents and great-aunt. And I wouldn’t be running from this lone spirit.
I thrust my power against the spell, and it crumpled. The spirit rushed us, screaming, eyes blazing with fury and slammed into the edge of the pentacle and disappeared.
Jessie took a shuddering breath and said, "Good work."
“Is it gone?” The nor
mal kid asked. I paused for a moment, wondering why he believed in what happened at all, but then again--he believed in magic. And who knew what he'd seen here when it was him and the ghost.
I shook my head and then said in proto-Romanian, “Open!”
As I spoke, I shoved my hands high and focused my will. The windows and doors of the building burst open. Again in proto-Romanian, I said, “Cleanse.”
And the magics that had been laid in and on the building began filtering out.
“Is it safe to come out of the pentacle, do you think?” Jessie asked.
Her answer was the popcorn machine rising into the air and being thrown at us. I focused my will on the emblems I had created my pentacle with and the popcorn machine bounced off of the pentacle wall and slammed into the wall opposite, embedded in the plaster.
“I would say that’s a no,” Chrysie said. Her voice was quavery, and I knew she was barely keeping it together. If my pentacle shields failed, we were screwed. It wasn’t like any of us were good enough at necromancy to get rid of this ghost. And without that skill set—it could do whatever it wanted to us and feed off of our terror while it did.
“Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god,” the guy whimpered. We might all die, and I wouldn’t even know his name. I was not, however, prepared to die.
“Call Finn,” I ordered Jessie.
“You can’t get rid of it?” She already had her phone out and was scrolling for his name.
“I’m in Necromancy 101. I can’t do jack with death magic. I have a vocab quiz on Monday for Necromancy.”
The guy in the pentacle with us began hysterically giggling, and Chrysie joined in, but her hand held him fast inside the pentacle when he might have run. We need to distract him. And me. I had a super need to pee, and I was pretty sure that was caused by terror rather than liquid intake.
We were singing camp songs when Finn and Monica arrived.
“Are you kidding me,” I whispered to Chrysie while I eyed that cow, Monica. She was Felix’s girlfriend. Because Felix was clearly stupid and blinded by her rack.
Hungry Graves: A Rue Hallow Mystery Page 6