Awakening

by Catrina Burgess

  Freddy spoke up, “There were a couple dozen people in that room. Why have they taken so many people hostage?”

  “So he can kill them,” I answered.

  Luke took a step from away from his sister and then drew her close again. “Did you see the ball room? Not everyone he’s taken is dead. My guess is he’s building some kind of coven. And they’re recreating the spells of old. The girl from the lake, Sarah. She said they gave her a choice, and she refused to give them what they wanted. I’m betting they wanted her power, wanted her will given over to the group.”

  I was trying to understand what he was telling me, but none of it made sense. “But why?”

  “So they could combine and become more than just themselves. Groups are dangerous. My people never combine our magics. We’re a guild, true, but everyone wields their own power separately. Centuries ago there were covens, groups of magicians. The problem is that the leader of the group defines what that magic is like, it’s flavor. They take over the free will from the group. Everyone in the group becomes almost like the banshees, a living person magically bound to the group’s leader. Bound to do his or her bidding.”

  “Macaven is trying to form a coven with the strongest mage members he can find? And the ones that won’t play along he kills?” I shook my head. “But they didn’t sacrifice Sarah, they just killed her.”

  Luke eyes met mine. “There are tales in the old books about covens hunting people for pleasure. For the thrill of killing. The violence inside them takes over in a way that’s dangerous. And from what we just overheard he’s close, close to letting the demon out.”

  “And if he does?”

  Luke frowned. “Demons haven’t roamed the earth for a hundred years.”

  Demons, Luke was talking about demons. A shiver went down my spine at the thought of such an evil creature set loose on the world. “How do you stop a demon?”

  “There were people trained to kill them, to force them into oblivion, but those arts have long been lost.” Luke slowly shook his head back and forth. “There are no demon killers in this day and age.”

  “So the demon would have free reign and Macaven would control it?” There would be no one to stop him. Luke said he was doing preparation for the spell, which meant we still had time to stop it. “How does he raise the demon?”

  “If he has enough people in the coven they would help him generate the power he needs to do one of the ancient raising spells.”

  “And my father, you think his spirit is in the dagger?”

  He looked away. “Your father no longer exists.”

  “But his spirit…” I couldn’t get the words out.

  Luke left Darla’s side and came to mine. He reached over and grabbed my hand. “It’s not like your brother James. Your father’s spirit, his very essence, has been combined with the others sacrificed with the knife.”

  “Combined with the evil ones?” I said through clenched teeth.

  “The darkest hearts and souls.”

  I couldn’t believe my father would be trapped forever in the dagger. “There’s no way to release my father?”

  “None that I know of.”

  “We have to stop Macaven!” We couldn’t let that madman go through with his plans. How many had he killed, how many more would die at his hands if he raised a demon? We’d left all those people. All those people in the basement were going to be slaughtered, killed brutally like my family. The image of the bullet tearing through my mother’s forehead flashed before my eyes. I could smell my father’s blood as it gushed from the wicked gash across his neck. Everyone in there was going to die, and we hadn’t done anything to stop it.

  Luke looked over at his sister and then back at me. “They’ll have figured out Darla’s missing, and they’ll start searching for her. Searching for us. We need to head back to the car and get out of here as fast as we can.” He walked over to Darla and put his arm around her and started forward.

  I walked over to Freddy’s bag and started rummaging through it, looking for a weapon I could use. I pulled out the axe. It was heavy, but light enough for me to swing. “I can’t leave those people to be killed by Macaven and his insane followers.”

  “You saw how many there were. We’re outnumbered,” Luke said.

  “We can’t just turn and run,” I cried. James spirit was still bound as a banshee. My father’s spirit was lost within the dagger. I believed my father could be saved--there had to be some way to free him. I wasn’t going to run away again, not this time. I wouldn’t leave my family to suffer forever at the hands of that madman.

  Luke eyes met mine. “Our people will be back next week. When they come back, we’ll make sure Macaven pays for what he’s done.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “By next week Macaven will have freed the demon. Your words, ‘there are no more demon killers’. You said there isn’t anyone strong enough to stop him. Macaven is powerful now, but with a demon at his side he’ll be invincible.”

  Luke’s arm tightened around his sister. “Colina, its suicide to go back in there.”

  “I can’t leave those people. I won’t leave those people in there. I won’t leave James,” I said through clenched teeth. I swung the axe and it sunk a good inch into the solid trunk of the nearest tree.

  Luke was starting to get angry. “What do you think you’re going to do with that? You think you can take on dozens of mages with your little axe. You aren’t thinking straight. You’ve a right to be upset about your brother and your father, I understand…”

  I cut him off. “You don’t understand.” I pulled the axe out with a violent tug. He couldn’t understand. He didn’t watch his entire family being butchered. I lost everything that was important to me and now Luke expected me to walk away without making the men pay for what they did to my family.

  “There’s nothing we can do.” Luke’s eyes were now pleading with me. “Not now. We have to play it smart and wait for backup.”

  I took a step back, and I shook my head. “I’m going back in.”

  Luke demanded, “And do what? You don’t have any banshee power. You don’t know any spells.”

  I knew what he was saying was true, but I didn’t care. A red hot anger was burning inside me. I was past reason. The only thought pounding through my head was the word ‘revenge.’ I wanted to make them pay for what they did. Luke made a grab for me, but I pushed him away. I started running back toward the house. What I was doing was suicide, but I couldn’t leave now. What if by the time we came back with his guild, the bad guys had all disappeared? Once they left it would be impossible to track them. I knew where they were now, and I wasn’t going to lose this chance to at least try and do something to stop them. And with their deaths dozens would be saved. Now was my last chance before Macaven become untouchable, too powerful for anyone to stop.

  I ran toward the house, and anger, fueled by blood and violence, radiated out of me. It was coursing through my body--the rage gave me a power I could feel, sliding down my limbs and tingling from my fingertips. I’d find a way to balance the scales. Those madmen had to pay.

  This time there was no one standing watch over the archway. I made my way back inside. I had no plan of action. I wasn’t thinking now, I was just reacting. My heart pounded in my chest, and I could hear it roaring in my ears. An image of the dagger flashed before my eyes. If I could get my hands on the dagger, I could stop Macaven from creating the demon. I’d freed the boy, Thomas, I could find a way to use my new abilities to free my father. Kill the wizard and the banshees go free. If I could kill Macaven, my brother’s spirit would be released. I might be able to get my hands on the dagger and thrust it through Macaven’s heart. If I could get close enough to the altar and create some kind of distraction. Wait until they weren’t paying attention to make a grab for the knife. If I could get close enough, I might just be able to pull it off.

  And once I did? How would I get away? How could I possibly escape? I pushed those thoughts aside and
kept moving.

  I went through one room and into the hallway. I was jogging now, trying to get back to the main event before they finished butchering the livestock. I didn’t know what time it was, but come midnight Luke said they would move from livestock onto killing people. They would start killing the hostages they were holding down below. Once I killed Macaven, I’d try to find a way to help the others escape, no more innocent people would die, not if I could help it.

  I came up to the door into the main room, and I could hear people cheering on the other side. An image of Luke flashed through my mind and my fingers hesitated on the doorknob. There was a good chance I wouldn’t make it out of this alive. There were things still left unsaid between us. I’d never told Luke how sorry I was about the stupid fight we’d had. How, the more I thought about it, the more I realized I wanted to stay with him after this was all over. If his guild wouldn’t accept me, maybe the two of us could go off together on our own. Luke said he loved me. If he loved me, he might be willing to leave his guild to be with me. I shook my head. If I did this, if I went through the door, I was risking everything to try and save my brother’s and father’s spirits. It was a crazy thing to do. A sob escaped my mouth, and my hands were trembling. I had to do it, I would fight this time, I would save what I could of my family. I had no choice but to try.

  I took a deep breath and let the anger run through me like a fire. It was what I needed now, the anger, the violence--it was what made the death dealers so effective. I might not have spells, but Luke was wrong, I did have some magic. I could raise the dead. So what if I couldn’t bring forth banshees, all I needed was a dead body or two, and I could create the distraction I needed. My mind didn’t shy away at the thought of killing someone. I was no longer the weak, helpless healer who’d stumbled into the magic shop. I’d been through the rituals and had survived them. I had watched my family being slaughtered, and I was still functioning. I had been tested by fire, and I had come out stronger, the fire had turned me into steel.

  I pushed open the door and walked into the room. Macaven was still by the altar, but this time instead of a goat lying across the altar, it was a teenage boy. The boy’s hands were tied to either side of the stone surface as Macaven stood over him.

  Everyone in the room except Macaven was swaying back and forth. As I passed a group of people, I realized no one in the crowd seemed aware I was there. They all seemed to be in some kind of trance. Macaven held a black book in one hand and the dagger in the other. He was reading words from the book in Latin. All my attention was now focused on Macaven. I moved forward through the swaying crowd, weaving my way around black capes and making my way toward the altar. Pushing back my cloak, I lifted the axe. I gripped my fingers tightly around the base of the axe and moved forward.

  Someone bumped into me. I turned and realized this guy didn’t have a glazed expression on his face, he looked quite pissed. His hands came up, and he started to make a grab for me.

  He said, “Got her!” and I realized he was talking into an earpiece.

  More guards were closing in on me from the back of the room. The bad guys had me, and I didn’t doubt for a minute they would kill me. I didn’t realize I had lifted the axe until I saw it swinging down toward the man’s head. It smashed into the side of his temple, and he fell to the ground. Blood spurted out around the axe embedded in his head.

  Adrenaline was pumping through me, but a part of me couldn’t believe what I’d just done.

  A cold breeze swirled around my neck, and the words, “They’re coming for you,” whispered across my ear.

  I shook my head and looked across the sea of bodies. No one close to me seemed to notice what I had done. They were still swaying and chanting, their eyes glazed over. I could see movement, three or four men making their way slowly around and through the crowd. I dropped to my knees next to the fallen guard. He was dead, I was sure of it. There was no spark of life in his eyes. Before I could stop and think about what I had just done, I reached out with my hands and touched his face. A bright orange light exploded, and there was a rush of sound and images. I sat back on my heels and watched as the dead man sat up.

  “Girly, what’ve you done to me now?” It was Wanda’s voice. “You left me to that mob in the hospital. They tore the body I was in limb from limb, but it wasn’t until all the parts starting rotting that I was finally freed, and now look what you’ve done!”

  I closed my eyes and focused on Wanda’s voice. I tried to reach out with my whole being and touch her spirit. I slowly spoke the words Luke had told me when I’d tried to bind Thomas’s spirit. “Constringo Constrixi Constrictum.” I pointed toward the men coming my way and commanded, “Stop them!”

  I had no idea if it would work. I was reacting on pure instinct, but if I could create the undead maybe, like a banshee, I could bind them and control them. I held my breath and waited and, ever so slowly, the dead man rose to his feet, the axe still embedded in his head. He started walking toward the back of the room.

  “What the heck is going on, I don’t want to go this way! Stop! Why am I moving?” Wanda’s voice cried out.

  The dead man’s arm reached up and pulled out the axe. He started to swing it in the air at the crowd as he moved. I had just released a zombie into the crowd. A zombie swinging an axe. How many people would that thing kill? I had wanted a distraction but I had just committed true murder and I now had set a monster onto the crowd. A part of me cried out, screaming in my head that what I was doing was insane, but the anger in my blood was roaring so loud now I was having a hard time focusing on anything but the red rage washing over me in waves.

  I watched Wanda stumble through the crowd, axe swinging clumsily back and forth through the air. The clumsy swings did little damage, for the most part, but here and there the edge cut into a dazed cultist. The axe suddenly came down into someone’s arm and blood spurt out in a gush, but the trance was so deep the cultists didn’t even seemed to notice, they swayed back and forth, until slowly their body slid to the floor. Wanda the zombie was hurting people, Wanda the zombie would probably kill people. I should be stopping her. Instead I turned and looked for Macaven.

  He was at the altar, I shoved my way through the crowd, the people around me were repeating each word Macaven was saying. Macaven was using the magic and the will of his coven to power a spell, but the demon wouldn’t be released until tomorrow. If Luke was right, Macaven would be waiting to release the powerful spell under the dark moon. If Macaven wasn’t releasing the demon, what spell was he trying to work?

  Screams began to ripple through the crowd behind me. Would Wanda’s violence be enough of a distraction to unravel Macaven’s spell? I turned and saw that she had cut a path most of the way across the room. Bodies littered the floor behind her. It was hard to tell how much damage she had done, as the blood blended with the dark robes. I watched as Wanda the zombie approached the wall, a wide eyed guard pulled a semi-automatic weapon from underneath his robe and began firing. The bullets passed through Wanda with almost no effect, though she shrieked in a disturbing female way from the male mouth, and stumbled to the side. Several more guards opened fire, trying to bring Wanda down with the sheer weight of all that lead. The stream of bullets passed into the crowd, and more of the coven fell. Wanda wobbled and fell behind a wizard. It was as effective as putting on a bullet proof vest, the bullets hit the wizard and zinged off, bouncing in every direction. I had heard that powerful death dealers could deflect bullet, but actually seeing it was something else. More bodies dropped, those not so powerful or lucky. In moments, dozens lay dazed, dead or screaming in pain on the floor. The firing slowly stopped as the guards fell to their own bullets bouncing back at them. I had wanted a distraction, but what I had set in motion was more along the lines of mass murder.

  People were dying. I shook my head--bad people were dying, people who had committed murder themselves. These were not innocents, these were the ones who had agreed to follow Macaven. These were people try
ing to release a demon into the world. The innocents were down below, helpless, in danger unless I did something to save them.

  Macaven had stopped to watch the carnage, but almost immediately his whole focus returned to the boy on the altar. The sacrifice was going to happen at any moment. Macaven had the dagger raised in the air, in his other hand the book. He shouted out more Latin words. I couldn’t let him kill the boy. I pushed and shoved my way to the bottom steps of the altar. Macaven, the madman that had killed my family, was moments away from slitting this boy’s throat. I would not stand by and watch him kill again. I had to stop him. A red hot, blinding rage burst through me, and I rushed up the steps.

  Macaven spotted me, and he dropped the book and raised his hand as if to work a spell, but I was moving too fast. I lowered my shoulder and plowed right into him. We both flew off the altar and hit the ground in a tangle of limbs. I grunted in pain as I hit the floor. The knife flew out of Macaven’s hands and skidded across the room. I forced myself to move--I rolled toward the dagger and made a grab for it, cutting my flesh as my fingers wrapped around the blade. My blood slid down the steel surface, but I ignored the pain and pulled it toward me. I held the dagger tight in my hand and lifted it up as more of my blood dripped down its handle.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of Macaven’s minions moving toward me. He was a giant, a man so large that the robe he wore looked like a circus tent. At the sight of him I froze, unsure what to do next, as nothing short of a tree trunk would bring this guy down.

  Luke and Freddy appeared from nowhere, plowing into the huge man’s side and sending him stumbling across the altar. Freddy began wailing on the massive man with his bolt cutters , while Luke struggled to hold the giant down.

  Luke looked over at me and yelled, “Kill him!” in a strained voice and pointed to where Macaven was beginning to climb to his feet.

  I had the knife. The only way to release a banshee was to kill the wizard binding him. If my brother was going to be freed, Macaven had to die. I raised the knife and started forward. Macaven raised his hands and screamed out. Banshees began to form in the air around him in an angry tornado. They swirled around in the air between us. How could I get to him? By the time I reached him, I would be flayed alive, or worse. The spirits suddenly turned in my direction and rushed forward. I raised an arm up over my head, but I realized I had no magic to protect myself against the assault. I closed my eyes and waited for them to swarm over me.