Resurrection

by Lissa Kasey

  It seemed to be on some sort of timer. Which didn’t make sense. But every few minutes the ropes would loosen, and for a half second, he’d plummet to the floor, but it would catch him and tighten again, like a snake coiling and uncoiling.

  However, it was fast bordering on becoming a problem. And none of this sort of shit should happen on his campus. Now he knew why his Aunt Lily had been so eager to retire and hand him the reins. College kids did a lot of stupid stuff, and he was often caught up in the middle of it trying to unravel their mistakes.

  Unfortunately, he still often got the deer-in-headlight look from the non-magic masses, despite being a largely politicized figure by the media. Had the kid who’d let him in the door to the dorm earlier known? Who Sei was or what awaited him? Had this been planned, or had he just stepped in someone’s bullshit?

  Sadly, it was most likely the latter. Which meant not only had he been caught in a badly constructed magical booby trap, but he was also locked in with a somewhat concerning enchanted golem.

  Technically, he’d been searching for the golem.

  After a handful of incidents on the UofM campus had been brought to the administration’s attention, he discovered that a couple of students were using a golem to take tests for them, or cover for them in lectures. Not smart, since golems were creatures of questionable magic who only spoke truths. It could memorize textbooks and answer quiz questions, but it could not rationalize essays with human morals and consequences. Golems would also do a lot to fulfill its commands. It made them easy to turn to darker things, including theft and murder.

  No one had died. Yet.

  The magic woven around it, making it look like a regular person, had begun to unravel. More than a handful of reports around campus of a guy with “his face falling off” had been the first indicator. Golems could only play human for so long before the blood magic began to fade.

  Unfortunately, spells steeped in this sort of magic tended to go sideways fast. The golem had attacked a group of football players—who Seiran personally had always thought deserved a beatdown—and ended up on a couple of uploaded camera phone videos. They’d taunted it and pushed it around, which normally wouldn’t have a golem lashing out. But the fact that it had reacted, meant something had either gone wrong with the magic that created it, the players were interrupting a set of commands, or the bond the caster had to it was weakening. Possibly all three.

  Four college kids were in the hospital. All would recover, but Sei needed to find the golem before the next batch of kids it crossed paths with didn’t.

  Kids… sigh. He was getting old. Thirty-six wasn’t that old, was it? Most of the kids… students, he was trying to save were barely twenty. Many not old enough to legally drink alcohol. Seeing them made him think of his own kids, though they were much younger, and the need to catch this thing intensified. Just because it had stayed on the college campus so far, didn’t mean it would forever.

  When someone found or created power from killing something, they tended to forget the rules. Magical power needed balance, which meant the longer this golem lived, the more it would pull from the environment, and possibly its creator or creators. The more the creators exploited it, the more they would feel emboldened to do. Taking tests was a small thing, but how long before it migrated to revenge, or even murder as it unraveled?

  Tracking the golem down should have fallen to one of the inspectors. But as usual, the department was understaffed. The fall season was always the worst. The warning stretch of winter coming, a sleepiness in the earth, and a reorganization of “who worked where” as people were promoted, demoted, or moved. A half dozen newbies had been welcomed a week earlier. All wet behind the ears, with stars in their eyes about saving folks and stopping magic crimes. Kids.

  Sei sighed thinking back on the past few weeks. He was not about to send the first-year researchers into the field. Not after a golem. He wasn’t even sure most of his new hires knew what a golem was. He had been fighting for years to have more diverse curriculum added to the magic studies programs. The Dominion had the idea that not teaching certain things could keep students from experimenting with them. A stupid philosophy that was disproven as a regular part of Sei’s job.

  There were a dozen ways to create golems, though the physical makeup was mostly the same. None of the rituals were particularly nice, and at least half of those required blood sacrifices. Usually death, unless the witch casting was extremely powerful. The Dominion didn’t really recognize black magic as a thing, as intent mattered more. But killing someone to create a shapeshifting body double to take tests and attend lectures? That was a bit of a stretch on the positive intent spectrum.

  It was more self-exasperation that kept him trapped in the rope trick, than anything else. Well, that and the fact that every time he tried to use magic, the golem began to move. Lying on the tiny dorm bed it looked like little more than a pile of sticks tied together in a sort of humanoid shape. A head, arms, legs, a torso, but nothing else definable. No current command or intent that required a human face. Either that or the magic had unraveled so far it couldn’t be human.

  The golem smelled of rot, dirt, and underneath, the edge of something green. Within all that decay was some bit of life.

  Earth was Sei’s strong point. But the ropes surrounding him were some sort of metal coated in plastic. Weirdly immune to his element. The tiny bit of power he’d used simply to discover the makeup of the trap bonds, and the haphazard spell controlling it, made the golem open glowing red eyes and turn its head his way. It seemed to grow a little in size, the edge of dark menace trickling from it until he stopped using magic. Almost as if it was pulling from Sei’s magic. That could go bad very fast as Sei’s magic was almost limitless.

  Some sort of ward, perhaps?

  Nothing he’d ever seen before, and he spent a lot of time studying the obscure—mastering wards and incantations—that could be construed as gray magic. Not because he planned to do nefarious things, but to recognize them before the danger grew out of control. He’d had a successful career out of doing just that. Apparently, today was to be his day of self-discovered inadequacies.

  This golem might have been used for stupid things, but whatever spell it had been tied to for defense, was not benign. A golem could punch through concrete, or break a human into pieces, but it couldn’t cast its own spells. It was a thing created by magic, but not one that could manipulate magic.

  As the Pillar of Earth, the most powerful earth mage on the planet, Sei could have decimated the bonds and the golem all in one blow. But it would have damaged the dorm, and been an excessive use of force. Which meant lots of paperwork, and he’d be unable to question the golem about who had created it, and who might have died for it to live. These were not low-level spells, so even if some kid found a book of necromancy in their parents locked spells cabinet, creating a golem wasn’t the same as microwaving a pizza—pop the disk in the box for five minutes and wait. It was a complicated list of ingredients, incantations, and required a high-level witch. This wasn’t even a magic studies dorm; no one in the program, although a handful of them belonged to witch families.

  How did a couple of jocks create a golem powerful enough to fool teachers, some of whom are witches themselves? How had no one sensed what they did? Or reported anything suspicious? Most of the magic students stayed in the dorms together, but he knew there were a couple dozen spread out across the campus, and the teachers were even more widespread, with almost every professor now having some sort of elemental strength. But no one noticed? Was that a spell, too? Something to mask the presence?

  Sei would need to dive into the disaster of the Ascendance records again. The old cult of magic, though mostly disbanded, had collected a lot of questionable written works in their time. Their stockpile of reading spanned a more eclectic mess. But it was extensive, and Sei didn’t have that much time to read anymore. Not with a fulltime job, a tenured teaching position at the university, and three kids to raise. He di
dn’t think Tales of Dark Magic was ideal bedtime reading, either. Maybe he needed to remedy that.

  He glared at the golem from his upside-down position. Blood rushing to his head was making it harder to think. Each use of magic seemed to be siphoned by the golem, even if it was only a hint, and then the binding spell sped up. Having spent years working on the balance of power around a siphon, Sei could detect the nuances of it. He wondered if Sam knew about spells to create siphon powers. Usually, those sorts of spells were temporary or lethal.

  The inheritance ceremony transferred power from one individual to the next, but required the death of one caster. Sei couldn’t think of any spells that siphoned small bits of power. That was more the act of a born siphon, like Sam Mueller. He hated the fact that he’d have to call the vampire as soon as he got out of this mess, maybe even sooner.

  The golem was far enough away, a good ten feet, that it was hard for Seiran to make out the tiny inscription on its forehead, which of course, was in another language.

  Latin? It didn’t seem to be Latin, although Latin was still the language most commonly used in spell casting. Sei had been studying the language since he was a preteen. His mother had insisted that he memorize and master a lot of the original magic languages. Reading them was much easier than speaking them.

  It didn’t look Greek either. More Farsi, or something else from the Middle East. And Sei only knew that because Sam had spent a lot of time mastering the language for his work under Maxwell Hart. Max was the master of vampires, so when he demanded, all the little vampires had to follow. Not that Sam was a little vampire. The whole witch and vampire thing was a big deal, as it was rare for powers to remain when a person crossed the threshold between life and death. But Sam worked for Max first, only begrudging Sei’s company when it benefited them both.

  Would Sam know? It was an easy enough question. And a less messy fix to this entire situation. To control the golem and take it over, Sei needed its name. Too bad it hadn’t been written in English and said something like “Spot,” he would be done and gone. No need then to call the grumpy vampire.

  Suck it up, Ronnie. Sei could hear Sam’s sarcasm in his head even while it was his brain conjuring up the vampire’s reaction. You’ll always need me. Some badass Pillar you are. Trapped by a couple of frat boys and unwilling to blow the place up.

  Asshole, Sei thought.

  The weight of his phone dug into his back pocket. The devices were huge now, and his didn’t like magic much, as he tended to short them out with magical bursts. Would the trap set it off?

  Sei wiggled around to reach his phone, irritated that the ropes kept tightening each time he moved, and then did that weird, jerking, drop and wrap back up. It was not a fun ride at all, rather a startling drop that each time he thought he’d land face first, hands too wrapped up to catch himself, but it was a tease, never quite letting him go. And each trip back up, it wrapped up tighter, making it hard to breathe now. Plus the constant up and down was making him nauseous.

  Finally, he got the phone and zoomed in on the forehead of the golem to take a picture. It seemed to be working, but the phone took a long time to send the image to Sam. Sei stared at it, hoping for a quick answer or callback. But he had no idea where Sam was. He could be halfway across the world.

  The spell did its weird drop again, this time slapping Sei onto the floor hard enough to knock the breath out of him, and then yanking him back upward to slam into the ceiling. It felt a bit like being in a spider’s web, gummed up tight and barely able to move. At least he hadn’t dropped the phone. If he didn’t get a callback soon, he was going to say screw it all and blast this fucking trap to pieces, property damage or not. Of course, that could mean a rampaging golem minutes later, after it absorbed the power of Sei’s spell, but he’d cross that bridge when it happened.

  He tried to navigate to a search, but it was hard to do that with one hand. His kids would have been able to do it. Ki was a master of phone stuff. Sakura too. Kaine didn’t much care for technology, but could use it because his siblings could.

  The phone rang. Sam! Thank all things green and growing.

  It took a fun game of how far could Sei twist his fingers in the wrong direction to push a button to get it to not only pick up the phone, but flip it to speaker. Maybe he needed to become one of those douchebags always walking around talking into an earpiece and acting all snooty when someone turned their way. Though he’d probably have lost an earpiece by now.

  Another drop, tighten, roll upward. He was not a fan. A few more of these and he would upchuck the bento box meal he’d had for lunch.

  “Hello?” Sei called, hoping he hadn’t accidentally disconnected the call. Or Sam hadn’t hung up in annoyance as he often did.

  “Ronnie?”

  That stupid nickname would never go away. At least Sam was the only one brave enough to call him that. “Did you get the picture?” Sei asked. Okay talking was bad. Ropes tightened when he talked. He was so going to fuck up whomever created this spell.

  “Yeah, why are you messing with golems? You know there are field inspectors to do the dirty work, right?” He sounded as annoyed and sarcastic as usual. Sometimes Sei really wanted to hit him.

  Sei fought for air for a minute, trying to breathe shallowly so the ropes didn’t tighten further. “Read name?” He gasped out. The ropes tightened again, leaving him breathless, and black spots dancing across his vision. He was running out of time. He had to either take over the golem or destroy it all before he passed out.

  “It’s stupid. Fucking thing is named Forest. Who names a golem Forest? I mean, I get it looks like sticks, but it’s gotta be mostly clay underneath…” Sam rambled on.

  All Sei needed was the name. The second he heard it, he wrapped his power around it, feeling the winding strength of the earth narrow down to the link on the golem. His power grabbed onto the name, a claim and bond that tried to suck magic from him immediately. But he took over control, weaving his strength around it, and scrawling its name in the power. The swirling energy etched through the golem told Sei more than one had died to create it. That was disheartening.

  The strangest part was that it felt like the golem wasn’t an empty vessel filled with intent, but rather powered with actual souls. That wasn’t possible though, was it?

  His magic filling the room meant the ropes tightened as though they were going to sever him into pieces. He dropped the phone as his arm went numb, but he kept his power flowing, even while his sight completely blacked out.

  The human form was so fragile sometimes. Even his.

  He sank into the spells. It was a complicated weave not all that unlike a spider web as he’d thought earlier. Layers of spun design, rolling one on top of another. This wasn’t a newbie’s experiment. Nor was it some frat boy’s wet dream of getting out of schoolwork. A practitioner had cast this mess. Not a mess so much as art.

  And Sei memorized it as such. Locking it away, not just inside of his memory, as he’d spent years mastering his vault of internal knowledge, but also within the golem. He tied the creature to himself, taking over the bond to its previous master, and wrapping it in his magic to have a firm grip on the golem’s power. With the shifting of the bond, the spell released, wards shattering like a glass window pane, and he hit the floor hard.

  Okay, hard enough to knock him out for a minute or two, but not more than that. He groaned and tried to drag himself off the floor. His chest hurt from the compression. Since it wasn’t the first time he’d had that feeling, he knew he likely had a couple broken or cracked ribs. By nightfall he’d be covered in bruises, stiff, and hopelessly sore. His phone, however, was going to need to be replaced.

  He glared at the protective coating, just as shattered as the screen itself, and the dark screen underneath. “So much for gorilla glass, eh?” Sei said, growling at the phone that was supposed to be unbreakable. “Fuck, Jamie is going to be pissed.”

  At least the rope ward was broken. He was not a fan. Whoeve
r created that mess really needed to be tied up in it for a lesson in what not to do with wards.

  Sei turned to look at the golem who was sitting up on the bed now, looking at him with eyes that were far too alive to be that of the creature. It no longer looked like sticks, but a person, young and male. Sei hoped it wasn’t the visage of one of the ones who died to create it.

  “Forest,” Sei called it by the name it had been given. Once they got back to the office, he would have it show him whose blood had been spilled to create it. Were their souls trapped inside? Was that what he was sensing? The underlying awareness of a soul?

  Necromancy hadn’t been an area he studied much. Most of the magic was hidden from the Dominion as it seemed to appear more in men than in women, and the women still controlled the Dominion. Though spells could be universal, the power wasn’t. Maybe whoever cast this spell hadn’t been a necromancer, which was why it had started to unravel? Sei only knew of one person to ask.

  Which meant another call to Sam. The undead dealt with the dead. “Come with me,” Sei instructed the golem. He gathered up the magic items he could find, the rope, a handful of basic books and spell supplies, but found nothing of real significance. If the casters had been living in this room, they kept their good stuff elsewhere. Though he suspected these frat boys had been given this golem. Perhaps they’d bought it? Or it had another means to an end? Since it was bound to Sei now, that meant he could ask a lot of questions. He prayed he could find the creator before they brought another to life.

  Chapter 3

  The box stopped and Gabe had no idea how long he’d been moving. Only that when the lid opened, the lights were too bright, and he smelled blood everywhere. The need to eat tore at his sanity, demanding he break free and devour them all. He was so ravenous he couldn’t think straight, his mind focused on the pulsing heartbeats, following each rhythm to place exactly how close or far they were from him.