by Viola Grace
“What happened?”
“Lots of ghosts. Two are reds, and one has the others attacking each other over her. And me. They attacked me.”
“I need to remove your clothes to assess your wounds.”
“Go ahead. I am a little limp right now. I am pretty sure it isn’t anything you haven’t seen. Same anatomy, different colour.”
Ulysses came to her side, and he sat there as she helped Domerik remove her jacket and the tank top under it. Her bra was plain and black, but it was fine. The wounds were over and under it.
“These are deep and from a spectral knife,” Domerik muttered as he went to get some kind of kit.
“Funny. They felt deep.”
He snorted and began to clean her up before the stitches began. She was hungry and thirsty by the time he was done.
“Do you get carved up often while on assignment?”
“Now and then. Luckily, I don’t scar much. Not like my mom does.”
He chuckled and kept working. “You aren’t in any pain?”
“It hurts like hell, but one bonus to having a low body temperature is that you can control the numbness in certain areas.”
“So, you can feel it, but...”
“But I can make the pain cold. I don’t know how to explain it.” She didn’t sigh. Tried not to move. “It is a distant but sharp pain.”
“You lost a lot of blood.”
“Yes, I did. I am feeling a little grey.”
He sighed. “You might need a transfusion.”
“I can’t spend the time. I have to look up how to break a spell, not just a ghost. This binding is weird.”
“That is a third-level skill.”
She turned her head. “I have twelve hours before I can get back there and lay some traps. I am going to know how to construct them.”
Ulysses stepped toward them, and she heard him say, “Show her. She has been on her own all this time, the least we can do is help her when she needs it.”
“Thanks, Ulysses. It will be very helpful to get the information that I need when I need it.” She sat up when Domerik finished his stitching on her side.
Domerik murmured, “It is a miracle that your internal organs weren’t injured.”
She smiled and grabbed her clothing with her right hand. “I am just going to hydrate, and then, I will be back for that information.”
“You should remain stationary. You lost a lot of blood.”
“Hence the hydrating.”
Domerik paused, looked at Ulysses, and then, he nodded. “I will bring you the texts and stay to help you translate them.”
“Thank you. It will probably take me a while to move across the yard, so you have some time.” She carefully moved toward the open doorway. Hecate paused and looked over her shoulder. “Thank you, by the way.”
Domerik blinked in surprise and smiled. “You are most welcome.”
She carefully straightened and looked at her car. The door was open, the lights were on, blood was all over the driver’s seat, the passenger seat was empty, but the bag was dragging its way to her home. Just a normal Monday night at the Wakeman property.
Chapter Six
The row of sports drinks on the table showed her that Amber had been at work. The first two went down so fast that she could feel her body dumping it into her bloodstream.
Hecate wished that she could give Amber more energy, but she gave her just enough to see her. “Hey, squirt. Thank you.”
“It is no problem. The rest of the gang are resting around the property, so we should be back to full strength when you go back.”
Hecate was on her third bottle when she paused. “You want to come back with me?”
“You need help. I felt what was inside there, and I am amazed that you made it out on your own.” Amber sat her ghost self on the table and swung her feet.
“It was a near thing. I thought that the problem was the groom. It was both of them and all of the groomsmen.”
“What?”
“Oh, yeah. It sucked.”
She grabbed some meat pies that she had managed to make for herself a few weeks ago and put them in the toaster oven. Remembering the right timing was difficult, but she pulled out her record book and found the right timing. Setting the unit, she closed the binder and put it back in the drawer. Working with reds was draining, so she had designed the book to help her when she couldn’t manage the simplest tasks.
She continued to drink the electrolyte beverage while microwaving a cup of beef bouillon. Fluids, minerals, and meat protein for blood loss.
A knock on the door brought her out of her bleary and dim focus on the numbers of the microwave. “Hello?”
“You are still on your feet.” Domerik came in, and he set a pile of books on the table. Amber sat there, and she was looking him over as if he was edible.
“I am. This might be the worst injury, but it is not the first time I have been sliced up on the job.”
She took the mug of hot beef tea and sipped at it. “What did you find?”
“I have a few ghost-trap charms and several weapons in the books. Do you use magic?”
“No. I only use ghost energy.”
He nodded. “Of course. Would you mind if I make you some of the traps?”
“As long as I don’t get stuck in them. Now, show me these charms.”
He picked up the third book in the stack and pointed to the page. There was a crystal in the center of a glyph, and it was glowing. The watercolour and ink painting was fairly clear.
“Pretty picture.” She smiled and reached out to trace the image of the glyph.
The page hummed to life and glowed brightly. She lifted her fingers, and the glyph followed her.
Domerik cleared his throat. “You said you don’t do magic.”
“I don’t. I mean, I use crystals for focus and glyphs for locking out the local demon, but I rarely have to draw the designs.”
Domerik’s expression was shocked. “Local demon?”
“Yeah. He’s a jerk, but the marks I leave after he has visited a site seem to work.”
“Marks?”
“Yeah. Like this one. It feels right to draw them with a bit of my blood.”
“But... you don’t have any of these books.”
“Nope. I prick my finger and draw in the air. It feels right.”
“You have not had any training?”
She snorted. “No.”
The timer went off, and she put on the oven mitts to remove the meat pies from the toaster oven.
“Are you hydrating?”
She laughed and set the pies aside to cool. “I have already put a liter and a half in my system, I am on my way.”
“Good. Now, how do you know to use the glyphs?”
“It just feels right. I think about what I am trying to do, I see the image behind my eyes, and I draw the picture.” She shrugged. “After that, I see the pattern when I pass the place I left it. I keep it about waist high in the air, and I am guessing that as it is in ghost energy, I am the only one who sees it.”
He gave her a somber look. “So, why use the blood?”
“It sets the power.”
“Ah. That is mentioned in one of the books, but it is a master-level branch of mage craft. How long do the marks last?”
“Years. I haven’t had one fade yet. Pretty sure that they are linked to me. As long as I am alive, so are they.”
“I am thinking you have a few things to teach me.”
She smiled. “I need to get better at hand-to-hand combat, so you can teach me that. I can show you the glyphs.”
“You definitely need weapon work and defense training.”
Hecate smiled. “Right. I can agree with that. What else is in those books?”
“We have more defenses, several weapons, and a protection spell that you may or may not be able to cast.”
“Do you think I can try that stuff in my condition?”
“I think you can try.”
/> She chuckled and went back to test her meal. It was in the right temperature zone for consumption. “Do you want one?”
He shook his head. “No. I fend for myself.”
“Ah. Good. I am not used to making food for two. Where is my grandfather?”
“He is going through the archives to find anything resembling the situation you have described.”
Hecate had a mouthful of meat pie, or she would have explained that they didn’t need to look it up. She knew what she needed to do. She would take a beating, but she could do it.
The ghosts were tied together, and if there hadn’t been signs that one of them was breaking free, she would have no idea where to start. That one had shown her what was holding the whole thing together, and when she went back, she was going to rip them apart until they were able to think like the men and woman they once had been.
It was not going to be a fun day, but if she could make some weapons and get some sleep, she was up for it. “Oh. Darn.”
She pulled out her phone and sent Leo a note. There is blood in the building. Sorry. And can you get the cleaning or decorating team out of there by four? I need to get an early start.
She munched and looked over Domerik’s shoulder as he flipped through the books and set out a listing of weapons and traps. When she cleared her mouth, she asked, “Are there any weird accessories for those?”
“Clear stones. That’s it. The rest just depends on the amount of power that you can bring to the cause.”
“Right. Like the Nexus.” She laughed and walked to her bedroom and got the box of glass beads that she had bought as a gift for Abby. She seemed like the kind of woman who could always use more places to store power.
She finished her first pie, washed her fingers, and divided the stones into three piles.
“What are you doing?” Domerik looked puzzled.
She glanced at the designs on display, and she pulled the first pile to her. She drew a glyph and concentrated. “These to call them.”
The glass glowed pink.
She got a plastic baggie and slid the beads into it.
She took the largest pile and focused. “These to hold them.”
They glowed soft blue, and Domerik was watching her closely.
She put them in a separate baggie.
The final pile needed the most focus, she traced images in the air over them repetitively until they began to glow. “And these to burn them.”
They were crimson when she finished charging them. She tucked them into the baggie, and she sighed. “That should do most of it.”
“You just did that. No study, no training.”
She picked up her second meat pie and chewed through it in under two minutes. When she was done, she washed it down with more sports drink and sighed. “No study, no training, no resources. I have drawn trap glyphs before. My instincts told me what to do, and it has always worked out. Oh, also, my dad’s ghost has been forthcoming on a few of the techniques, but I can only get him once a year.”
“You have spoken with Andrew?” Domerik looked like she had just told him she had found his puppy.
“I have. All hallows eve through to dawn. I met him when I was a teen and having a tough time with my stepfather.”
Domerik scowled. “He hurt you?”
“He ignored me. Andrew Stefan is a lot of things, but he isn’t compassionate. I was different, and different wasn’t what he was prepared to raise.”
“Wait, he has the same first name as your father?”
She groaned and nodded. “I tend to call him Stefan. It annoys him and satisfies me, but it does make things strained with my mother.”
Domerik sighed. “Why antagonize him?”
“Esmerelda’s name is Esmerelda Wakeman-Stefan. He adopted her.”
Domerik paused. “And you. He must have adopted you as well.”
“No. He didn’t want to get that close to my particular brand of crazy. My mother didn’t fight him on it. She thought I was channeling devils as well.”
“She didn’t understand what you were.”
Hecate laughed. “Ulysses didn’t understand what I am, I am pretty sure he is still figuring it out.”
“You understand what you are?” Domerik sat back and smiled.
She drank more of her favourite blue drink and sat down at her kitchen table. “Of course I do. I got to visit the archive, and now, I not only know where the Wakemans come from but what they are supposed to do, and what it will take to free the skills that I was born with for the next generation of little girls.”
“What are you supposed to do?”
“Complete the grimoire. Free the next generation from centuries of confinement dictated by their fathers and brothers and signed in blood. Yes, it was so that the women would survive, but the lack of movement on breaking the curse that bound them is truly shocking. If I don’t finish the grimoire before Esmy starts to have babies, the line is done.”
Domerik blinked. “You don’t think you can carry a child?”
“I was born half-dead if you want to be blunt. It is not likely that I will ever be able to carry a child. I also am not that comfortable with all of the rituals that lead up to a child, so it will be Esmy or nothing.”
“Does Ulysses know that?”
“It doesn’t matter. If he wanted to get to know anything about me, he could have come over here much sooner. You know, before the month before he died.”
He sighed. “He was hurt when his son moved to Canada and devastated when Andrew died. The result of the union was female. There was little mention of you or your sister and no one thought you would inherit the power that runs in your family. When the grimoire appeared and began to populate, he paid attention but assumed that it was the talent of the eldest. Do you have any idea how you came to possess the skills of your forefathers?”
“Yes. I know how I came to be.” She laughed. “My father held to his contract and then used everything he had to get me started.”
“What contract?”
She thought about what she had learned and figured out that Domerik worked with the family. He would know some of the details.
“So, you know that the Wakemans descend from the line of Death. We were put here to help those caught between worlds, and it comes very naturally. But, some of the living can sign contracts with demons to gain them their heart’s desire. That is the kind of contract that my father signed when he learned my mother was pregnant.”
She looked at him and said, “He wanted to protect my mother by making sure that their first child would break the chain of Wakeman tradition. They were married, she was pregnant, and he died on their wedding night. This was what the demon wanted. He wanted my father dead and the Wakemans bound completely.”
She sighed. “He gathered every bit of stored energy that he had and returned to my mother. They had sex one last time, and after, he explained about his financial safety net for her. By the time dawn touched him, he had done all he could and he returned to his shattered body at the accident scene. The thread of life had kept him going until he released it.”
Domerik stared. “I had no idea. So that is why you...”
“That is why I exist. At the last minute, Dad realized he was scammed, and he tried to correct it for his father, for you, and to protect his family from those who were going to use their powerlessness against them.” She smiled sadly. “One last act of defiance.”
He reached out and touched the back of her hand. “He was a good man. A strong man and he wanted nothing more than to be a father to an entire wave of young ladies. Ulysses wanted him to focus on the duties of the family, and Andrew struggled to balance the two. I am thinking that in his last moments, he found that balance.”
Hecate blinked, and she gave him a wobbly smile. “Thanks.”
It was the last thing she said before she pitched forward, and he caught her. Blood loss and the wounds had caught up with her. She belonged in the dark now.
Chapter Seven
“So, are you just going to float in the dark all night?” Her father was sitting in a small pool of light in the darkness of her thoughts.
“Why are you here?” She struggled to sit up; the blue gauzy gown flowed around her, so it was certain that she was in the dream state.
Andrew Wakeman got to his feet and helped her up. “So, my father and Domerik are finally settling in.”
She looked up at him, feeling confused. “Why are you here?”
“You are weak and need a boost. You have all the power you need in you, but you don’t know how to access it. I am here to help with that.” He grinned.
“You are in a really good mood, Dad. Why so cheerful?”
He smiled. “You are coming into full power, and Esmerelda is getting married. It is a good time to be a Wakeman.”
She chuckled and looked around. “Where are we?”
“This is the interior of the library that Domerik taught me in. Here. Let’s put some light on things.”
He still held her hands, but the shelves of books surrounded them in a wide bowl with the center of space polished stone, surrounded by weapon racks. There were bowls of crystals on study tables, shelves filled with vials with differently coloured liquids.
“This is where I grew up. I went to school during the day, and after I finished my homework, I trained. I hated it. Training to destroy ghosts felt wrong. They were people, after all.”
Hecate blinked and squeezed his hand. “They are. They are every emotion and feeling that a person has ever had. No wonder they are confused and can be aggressive. They seek out what is familiar and beloved or sometimes hated.”
“Exactly. I died furious at my own stupidity. I thought I was protecting Amitra and our child, but that was when things went wrong.”
“Demler.”
Her father blinked. “You know him?”
“Yeah, we have met. He’s a really slimy jerk and tends to prey on those in vulnerable family situations as well as those who are predatory themselves.”
Andrew sighed. “I really fucked that up. I was so desperate to keep my family safe. I would have eaten poison if it would have kept my child from being used.”