by Ann Macela
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Copyright Page
Acknowledgements
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Teaser chapter
DEDICATION:
To my readers, with heartfelt thanks for all your support
Published 2009 by Medallion Press, Inc.
The MEDALLION PRESS LOGO
is a registered trademark of Medallion Press, Inc.
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment from this “stripped book.”
Copyright © 2009 by Ann Macela
Cover Illustration by James Tampa
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 9-781-93383699-7
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First Edition
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
Thanks to my critique group—MJ, Rita, Sherry, Jan, Noirin, Barbara, and Chris—plus Paula and Kelle. Ladies, I couldn’t have done it without you.
Thanks to all those with whom I played fantasy role-playing games in the past. You really taught me to throw fireballs and lightning bolts.
About the location of the HeatherRidge Center. I have rearranged a few sub-divisions in the vicinity of Barrington, Illinois. When I began the book, the land was vacant. So, if you go looking for the HeatherRidge, it won’t be there.
Special thanks, as usual, to my own hero and the love of my life, Paul. He’s also the best research assistant a writer could hope for. And you can take that statement any way you want to.
PROLOGUE
Twenty-five years ago
“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” Bruce Ubell asked his cousin, Alton Finster, as he looked around the dingy storeroom in the basements of the hundred-and-ten-year-old ancestral mansion in Chicago. It was midnight, and their flashlight beams barely penetrated the cold gray gloom in the never- electrified space.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Alton replied with the edge he used to let Bruce know he had asked a ridiculous question. “Granddad’s diary is extremely specific, and I spent a lot of time as a kid exploring the cellars. I never noticed this place, though.”
Bruce straightened his red and black practitioner robe, settling it more carefully on his shoulders. This dusty, musty, dark corner of the basement creeped him out, and he reminded himself of the prize hidden here somewhere. To find it, he simply had to put up with Alton’s bossy tendencies. One day he’d show his two-years-older cousin who was really the smartest—and make him acknowledge it.
“Man, I thought my parents would never go to bed,” Alton said. “I expected any minute my mother would tell us it was past our bedtimes. You’d think they could treat us like adults. After all, I’m twenty-seven, and you’re twenty-five.”
“Yeah, my mother’s the same way. Given your father’s hatred of Granddad, I doubt they’d have joined in the hunt for what the old man called the secret of his success.”
“You’ve got that right. If Dad knew Granddad had ordered his lawyer to give me the diary ten years after he died, with instructions to show it to you, he’d have a fit.”
Bruce wondered for a moment if he would have showed the diary to Alton if he’d been the recipient, but put the thought out of his mind as unproductive and irrelevant. He stepped closer to the back wall and shined his flashlight behind a pile of wooden boxes. “Here’s the door.”
“Give me a hand,” Alton ordered as he lifted the top box and placed it behind them. A long smear of dirt trailed down his robe when he turned around.
Bruce grimaced. Alton never worried about ruining his robes—which matched Bruce’s since they had both inherited the family’s accounting talents. Bruce, however, did. The damn things didn’t always clean easily, and they cost a lot to replace because of their protective enchantments. For a CPA, Alton threw money around in a way Bruce couldn’t bring himself to emulate. Granddad’s instructions had been explicit, though: “Wear your robes.”
Bruce picked up one edge of the next box with his fingertips and helped carry it to the other side of the room. It was lighter than expected—the empty boxes were simply stage dressing.
“Only one more,” Alton said.
They moved the container and turned their attention to the dark wooden door. A black metal handle was bolted to the right side, but there was no visible lock mechanism.
“Okay.” Alton pulled a red-leather book from his pocket and opened the slim volume to the third page. “Shine the light here.”
Bruce did as he was told and reviewed the instructions along with Alton. “The resolvo spell is required to open it. Want me to cast?”
“Yeah,” Alton replied, “I’ve never used it.”
Of course he hadn’t—Alton was too lazy to learn any enchantment unless it directly involved his talents. Bruce cast the spell at the door.
It swung open, slowly and silently. A gust of stale, frigid wind blew out of the room behind it and ruffled the bottom of their robes. He shivered when, despite the protective spells, the chill penetrated the cloth.
When both aimed their flashlights at the opening, the darkness inside swallowed up the beams.
“Damn,” Alton said. “Looks like we have to use the candles.”
“Personally, I’d rather not chance exploding flashlights. If the magic in there is as old and powerful as the diary suggests, it may not like newfangled gadgets.” Bruce wished he’d paid for more safeguards in his robe, but nothing had fried him or Alton when they opened the door, so they were probably all right. After all, Granddad wouldn’t want to destroy his heirs—would he? He pulled a candle and holder out of a robe pocket and lit the wick with a small flamma spell.
Alton put the
little book in his pocket and did the same. “Granddad wrote that he cast extremely powerful shielding spells around the entire section of the basement, and especially this room. Can you feel anything?”
Bruce concentrated on the blackness. Nothing made him want to turn away. “No. Let’s be careful no matter what.”
Holding the candles in outstretched hands, they stuck the lights through the doorway into the dark. The flickering flames illuminated only a small room, as dingy as the one they stood in. When nothing happened, they entered—Bruce letting Alton go first.
The walls of the ten-by-ten space were rough-hewn stone, granite by the looks of it. The only furnishings were a scratched and dented wooden table and a matching chair, both dark with age and dirt. A tarnished-to-black six-branch candelabra, a supply of white candles, and a few sheets of blank, yellowing paper sat on the tabletop. Propped in a corner was a gnarled black stick about six feet long. Its top looked like four dead fingers trying to grasp something.
Bruce quickly put candles in the candelabra and lit them.
Alton turned in a slow circle before pointing at a corner. “The diary says to look three hand-spans south and four up from the northeast corner. Find a man’s face.”
Bruce raised the candles while Alton scooted the chair out of the way and knelt by the wall. They both jumped when a devilish stone face with a gaping grin leaped suddenly out of the black gloom.
Alton gave a nervous laugh and held his solitary candle closer to the carving. “Looks like Granddad, doesn’t it?”
“Now you’re supposed to put your fingers in the mouth and pull.”
“Whoa. Not me. Not when the instructions don’t say what’s in there or what happens next.” Alton stood and backed two feet away. “You do it.”
“Coward.”
“Just cautious. Granddad always liked you best, although why, I could never figure out. So, he won’t hurt you, but where I’m concerned ...” He shrugged.
Glaring at his cousin, Bruce had to admit Alton was right. Their grandfather had shown a preference for him, the younger grandson, and even predicted he’d grow up to take control of the entire family shipping empire. Bruce knew that prize wouldn’t be his. Even though his own mother was the eldest child, control of the Finster conglomerate always went down the male line. Besides, Alton wasn’t about to give up his privileged place in the succession, even to a smarter male cousin with a higher magic level than his.
On the other hand, for all his accounting ability, Alton wasn’t the most complicated spreadsheet on the computer. He couldn’t even understand Visicalc and was perfectly happy to let Bruce do the thinking. As a result, Bruce could usually manipulate him to do whatever he wanted, as long as Alton got the credit and none of the blame.
“All right, but you owe me for this.” Bruce handed Alton the candelabra.
In the glimmering candlelight, the stone face seemed to move, almost to laugh, almost to lick its lips, almost to be looking forward to chomping on some juicy fingers.
Bruce felt his own hand twitch and reminded himself he was a higher level than the old hedonist had been. He could protect himself. He thrust his index and middle fingers into the mouth.
Nothing happened.
He wiggled his fingers. The space around them was empty.
He reached farther in. The tips hit something. He withdrew his fingers enough to insert his entire hand into the hole and explore. The object at the back became a handle.
“What’s there?” Alton asked. “What’s inside?”
Bruce grinned as anticipation of what they’d find behind the stone in the wall rippled through him. He knew, absolutely knew, his life was somehow about to change enormously. He ignored his cousin and hooked his fingers around the bar. He pulled, first carefully, then harder.
CLICK.
He took a firmer grip and exerted more pressure. With a harsh grating sound, the whole face and the nine-inch-by-twelve-inch stone into which it was carved slid an inch out of the wall.
“Oh, shit,” Alton whispered. “What do you suppose is behind it?”
Bruce ignored his cousin, braced his feet, and pulled harder still, grunting with the effort. Stone scraped on stone, and he managed to haul the damn thing out only about three inches. Panting, he looked up at his hovering cousin. “Granddad must have used a strength spell to move this. Do you know one?”
“No, never learned it,” Alton replied. “Or a telekinesis spell, either.”
“Neither did I.” Bruce stood up and waved at the protruding face. “Brute-force time and your turn. Get it out a couple more inches so we can get a better hold around the edges.”
Alton put the candelabra on the floor, knelt, wiped his hands on his robe, reached into the mouth, and began to pull.
When the rock protruded another three inches, Bruce said, “Stop.”
He grabbed one of the candles and held it by the wall above the face. A deep groove was gouged in the stone’s top. The thing was not a stopper protecting a hole behind it, but a drawer.
He put his fingers into the groove. “Come on, Alton, pull.”
With the two of them working together, they brought the drawer out another foot. Alton held up the candelabra, and they peered into the small pit.
The groove was not empty.
A red leather-bound book, a duplicate to the diary in Alton’s pocket, and a drawstring bag lay in the bottom. Bruce picked up the book and riffled through its pages. “It’s a spell book, I think, and some of it looks like a list. It’s written in a weird language with strange letters.”
“Oh, great,” Alton said, rolling his eyes.
Bruce put the book in his robe pocket and studied the bag, a dark red silk with embroidered gold runes and glyphs and black drawstrings. It appeared to be about ten or twelve inches square. Whatever was in it pushed out the sides to make it six inches thick.
He held his hands over it, but could detect nothing to indicate either a threat or the contents—not that he would have been able to recognize a spell, but it seemed the thing to do. The bag itself, however, glistened as the candlelight hit the symbols. Granddad was nothing if not meticulous in his magic and protective of his secrets.
Whatever was in the bag, Bruce knew he didn’t want to discover it in this cold darkness. He carefully picked it up by the drawstrings and laid it on the table. “Let’s close the drawer and get out of here,” he told Alton. “We can investigate our ‘inheritance’ better upstairs.”
“Fine with me,” Alton said with a shiver. “I’m freezing.”
With both of them pushing, the stone drawer slid back into its place in seconds. Bruce took up the bag, Alton blew out the candles, and they exited the chamber, closing the door firmly behind them. Flashlights worked out in the storage room, thank goodness.
“Let’s put the boxes back,” Alton said. “We don’t want one of the staff finding the door by accident.”
Although Bruce doubted anyone had been in this room in decades, he went along with the idea. Alton was so damn picky-obsessive-compulsive, in fact—about how he put stuff away, and Bruce had long ago given up arguing about it. They restored the wooden boxes to their previous position.
“Come on, my father’s study is the best place for privacy,” Alton said, and he led the way up the stairs to the book-lined room on the first floor.
The only light came from a green-shaded lamp on the desk, barely enough to illuminate the portrait on the wall over the credenza behind it. Otto Finster, the previous owner of the book and the bag, glared down at them with his perpetual expression of distrust and disgust.
“You have no power now, old man,” Bruce said to the picture.
“I wish I was as sure of that as you are,” Alton muttered.
Bruce placed the bag on the desk under the lamp and looked through the book again. He had no clue what language it was written in—Greek maybe?
Alton went straight to the bar where he poured himself a stiff brandy. After swallowing it quickly, he pou
red one for Bruce and refilled his own.
Bruce raised his glass in a small salute to his grandfather and took a generous swallow of the amber liquid. He felt every fiery drop all the way down, and his sense of anticipation returned. “All right, let’s see what we have. The diary says it’s potent magic, so let’s take the precautions it outlined.”
“Right. I’ll get a bowl from the dining room.” Alton left and came back in a minute with a clear crystal bowl. He carried it to the desk, sat in the big leather chair behind it, and put the bowl directly in front of him.
Bruce pulled up a chair and sat across from his cousin. He gently picked up the bag, first by the drawstrings, then cupped it in his hands. The runes and glyphs glowed when the lamplight reflected off the gold threads.
“It’s not very heavy,” he said, squeezing it slightly. “I can’t tell what’s inside, however.”
“Get on with it, man,” Alton gritted.
Bruce took a moment to study his cousin. Since he’d laid eyes on the pouch, Alton had become nervous and sweaty, whereas he himself felt calm and collected. He shut off his curiosity about their different reactions and turned his total attention to the container.
Careful, very careful not to touch the contents, he loosened the drawstrings. Holding the bag by its bottom corners, he slid the contents out of their covering and into the bowl.
The two of them sat until dawn, staring at what fell out.
The contents stared back.
CHAPTER ONE
Present Day
Good, the don’t-notice-me spell is working. Irenee Sabel sidled out of the packed second-floor ballroom and into the hall.
Nobody paid the slightest attention, and a couple she knew well passed her without so much as a flicker of acknowledgment or recognition. After a quick glance around, she started walking toward the stairs to the first floor.