Deathspell

by Peter Dawes

  “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you have taken this vendetta of yours far enough. You brought it under my roof, where my wife and children sleep, and I won’t tolerate it.” He gestured toward the girls with his unencumbered hand while finally lowering the book to his side. “I am throwing it into the hearth and we are not speaking another word of it ever again.”

  He turned his back to me, facing the fire as he did so. “Wait!” I barked the word before I could stop myself, the caution I had been compelled toward replaced by an urge to rip the book away from him at all cost. Dashing forward, I reached for it, scowling when Jeffrey yanked it away from the tentative hold I had managed. “You are not throwing that in the fire. I’m not finished with it yet.”

  “Not finished with it?” Jeffrey laughed, the sound devoid of all humor. “Have you gone mad?”

  “No, I haven’t. I risked my neck for that and haven’t yet determined how useful it might be.”

  “Christian, I couldn’t care less. It goes in the fire.”

  “No.” Making another swipe for it, I forced him to turn and face me again. Jeffrey tucked the book behind his back, freeing both hands to take hold of my wrists. I clenched my jaw, bucking against the restraint while cursing the strength working the fields had granted him. “You have never understood me,” I hissed, not certain why I felt it necessary to say, but knowing somehow it needed to be stated. “Not in the time I lived with you and not in any year since. If you have no desire to help me, then fine, but don’t call me mad for wanting answers.”

  “Answers to what?” he countered. “The same riddles that drive you to kill? Has it ever occurred to you that you’re no better than any of those animals who came after father?”

  “You bastard.” I ripped my hands away from his grip and swung at him before I could stop myself. The blow landed solidly on his jaw, knocking him backward and forcing him to clutch onto the mantle before he lost his footing. Jeffrey surged back at me, and I stumbled into the table as my brother pushed at me. Anne scurried away from us. Tugging Ida and Ivette with her, she circled the girls in her arms while Jeffrey and I sized each other up. “I can’t believe those words came out of your mouth,” I shouted. “I am nothing like them.”

  “The lies you tell yourself to rest at night.” The volume of Jeffrey’s voice rose to match mine. He pointed toward the door while speaking. “You cause injury to people for coin and you like it, brother. I know you do. You punish the world because you feel you were punished and you extend this anger back to me. I have no more contempt for you than you have for me, Christian. I might not grasp why you hold on to this malice, but you fault me for wanting nothing to do with it. And now you let yourself get seduced by the very thing that killed our parents?”

  I opened my mouth to bark back a response, but stopped. As his words echoed in my mind, confusion overshadowed rage and demanded audience before my tirade could continue. “You mean the thing that killed our father?” I asked, my voice shaking with emotion.

  Jeffrey furrowed his brow at me as though I was speaking nonsense. He issued several steadying breaths, in a defensive stance lest I come at him again, but still otherwise. “Yes, that was what I meant,” he said, his gaze flicking to his wife before shooting back toward me.

  “No, it isn’t.” I frowned and lowered my hands to my sides. Jeffrey relaxed slightly, and he and I remained locked in a stalemate when he refused to respond to the assertion. Shaking my head, I stole the chance to step close and reach around for the book, retreating a few paces once I had it in hand. I was grateful when he didn’t try to stop me. “Jeffrey, why the hell did you say our parents? How do you know what this is?” I lifted the book before gesturing toward my chest with it. “Tell me.”

  “I can’t.” At the same time, I heard resignation seep into his words, a breath exhaled after their issuance which made his shoulders slump. In the moments which followed, he remained silent, his fingers combing through his hair while he clenched his eyes shut. I stole the chance to peer toward Anne, experiencing a rare moment of kinship with her as she peered back at me, at an apparent loss.

  My brother exhaled loudly, drawing our attention back to him. “Anne, could you please take the children outside?” he asked, his hand falling to his side and eyes opening to regard her. The look they bore had taken on a significant amount of fatigue and I felt a pang of sympathy for him. “They shouldn’t have even heard this much.”

  She nodded and peered down at the two girls clinging to either side of her waist. “Come along, sweetlings,” she said. “We need to go outside while Papa talks.” I frowned at the way the girls nodded, seeing the fear they harbored and remembering belatedly that I had struck their father in their presence. Somehow, there didn’t seem to be the right words to issue to either of them. I might have expected Anne’s expression to be chillier toward me when she regarded me again, but she looked confused, and departed without another word spoken.

  I sighed once I knew we were alone, nodding at the mark forming on my brother’s cheek. “I lost my temper,” I said, tucking the book behind my back, into the waistband of my pants, before it could become a point of contention again. “I apologize.”

  “I’m more used to you wounding me with words, not with fists,” he retorted. Jeffrey trudged toward the bench seats and lowered himself into one, pointing at the one opposite from him. “I don’t know if it’s wise to tell you anything. It’ll probably only encourage you.”

  “You’ll forgive me if I balk at your condescension. They were my parents, too.” Slowly, I lowered into the seat and took a calming breath, folding both hands atop the table separating us while doing so. “I have every right to know their fate.”

  “What you have a right to know and should know are different things, in my opinion.”

  Silence settled between us again, a more settled quiet than what had been present beforehand. I watched Jeffrey gather his thoughts, looking away for a short time before peering back at me and nodding. “I never forgave him for what happened,” he said. “A lad of eight years and I hated him for taking our mother away. I know how close you were to Father. I never wanted to say anything ill about him, so I bit my tongue. But if you want to know why I went off on my own as soon as I did, that is why.”

  My brow furrowed. “I don’t understand what you mean by that, Jeffrey,” I confessed. “I’ve always been told mother died of a fever.”

  “Mother had fallen ill, but we’ll never know if it would’ve meant her death. It wasn’t the first time Father’s habits had become a problem between them. You were only a baby when she first found out and I was old enough to remember the way they fought over it. I don’t remember what set off the disagreement, just her in tears telling him she didn’t want him meddling with that sort of devil work.”

  “Devil work?”

  He nodded toward my back, informing me with the gesture that he also knew where I had hidden the book. “That nonsense. In his youth, apparently, he’d learned how to cast spells and spoke of it as though he was good at it. Mother was furious. She made him swear an oath never to use it again.”

  I blinked. “Is this why he was being pursued by them?”

  “I have no doubt that’s why, but whatever he had been running from finally caught up to him.” Jeffrey punctuated his words with a sigh, his gaze shifting toward the hearth. “I know I’ve been dismissive of you, Christian, but I need you to believe it was for a good cause. Your curse might have been to watch Father be killed, but mine was Mother’s death. It’s been our burden to bear.”

  My brother became transfixed on the sight of the flames dancing in the firebox, lost inside his mind with a pregnant silence hanging between us. I reached forward, touching his wrist in an effort to coax him back. “What happened to Mother?” I asked.

  His frown deepened as he shifted his attention back to me. “Mother had fallen ill,” he said. “That part’s never been a lie, it’s the remainder that’s been a half truth. I still doubt that she
would have recovered, but we had no way of knowing for certain, especially when the band of men came looking for Father.” As he took a deep breath, I settled in for a tale while Jeffrey gathered his thoughts. His gaze turned distant again, his attention drifting as he opened his mouth to continue.

  “We were holed up in one of those damned inns,” he began. “You know how they are. Each one is about the same as the one that came before it, populated by low-lives and travelers with loose women lurking around every corner. You and I used to make a game of hiding beneath the tables until the barkeep chased us either outdoors or back to our room. We had been threatened with a sound thrashing and ran up the stairs with so much commotion, Father had to tell us to mind ourselves around Mother.”

  I couldn’t fight a small smile tugging at the corners of my lips. Jeffrey failed to share in my mirth, though. A haunted look overcame his countenance. “He was midway through scolding us when there was a crash from down in the main hall. And there was something about the panic and confusion on his face that made me wonder if he knew what exactly that was. Mother tried to get up. He said, ‘Tilly, no, you rest.’ When he looked at me, though, my stomach knitted into a hundred knots. ‘Take Christian and hide,’ he said. ‘Don’t come out until I call for you and don’t make a sound.’

  “I told him, ‘Yes, Father,’ and fought for your hand, nearly dragging you into the hallway. While you bucked and threatened to scream, I told you not to say a word and promised you apple cake if you kept quiet.” A bittersweet chuckle passed through his lips, birthed quickly and almost bringing a breakdown of my brother’s composure with it. Tears danced in his eyes. “I found us another empty room and forced us to crouch in the dark. At one point, I pressed my hand over your mouth while I held my breath.

  “You finally forced my hand from your mouth to ask where Mother and Father were. I could hear how scared you were. You wanted to know what was happening and you begged me to let you go back to them and I tried to ignore you – I really did – but there were loud voices and awful noises and finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer. I placed a finger against your lips. ‘Not another word,’ I said. ‘I'll see what's going on.’ And I left you there in that room repeating over and over that there’d be apple cake for Christian if he behaved himself.

  “As I approached, though, those awful noises only got worse. I peered through a crack in the door and it was just in time for me to watch those last, brutal moments play out. Father had a man pinned up against the wall and had been reaching for this fellow’s sword when suddenly, Mother began to scream. At first, I didn’t know why. Not until another man came into view, approaching her bedside while Father was distracted.” He paused, collecting himself even as a tear slid down his cheek. He regarded me again while swiping it away. “I swore for years I’d imagined what happened next. It wasn’t until you told me about the innkeeper that I realized it was just as real as it had seemed to be.”

  “What did you see?” I asked, inching forward in my seat as if on instinct. Trepidation quickened in my stomach, but still, I felt as though my entire existence hinged upon the answer to my question.

  Jeffrey shook his head. “The man beside Mother lifted a hand, and a gust of wind blew through the room that seemed to snatch the air right out of her chest. Father yelled –” His brow furrowed, gaze shifting away from me again. “– And I remember just how hopeless he looked when Mother gasped and fell still. He brought down those men with just a few simple words, but when he clamored to Mother’s side, it was too late.”

  A lump had begun to form in my throat. I struggled to swallow it back down. “She was gone?”

  My brother shut his eyes. “Yes, she was.” It took a moment for Jeffrey to lift his lids once more, but when he did, the look in his gaze bore a chilling sobriety. “We forgot about you for a while. Father found you crying in a corner of the inn much later, but I…” He struggled to maintain eye contact, but lost the battle when more tears spilled over onto his cheeks. “I lingered by Mother. I couldn’t accept the fact that she was dead.”

  It was the first time he had ever let on what pain he had borne through the years, and the only time I could recall any sense of connection with him. He glanced at me appreciatively when I gave his wrist a small squeeze, and we both sat in silence, him taking a few steadying breaths and finally sobering enough to speak again. “You need to stop this, Christian,” he finally said. “These men are dangerous, as is your obsession with them. Burn the damn book. Go back to your mercenaries if you feel that will bring you peace, but stop pursuing Father’s killers. I’m begging you.”

  My hand slunk away, retreating onto my lap. I sat back, raising an eyebrow at the strange juxtaposition of sympathy and judgment in Jeffrey’s words and not sure how I felt about either. The warning they contained clashed headlong with the whispers growing inside my mind, and while I understood his aversion better, it did nothing to deter my curiosity. In fact, just as he had warned, it did the opposite. “They were our parents, Jeffrey. How can you expect me just to let that stand?” I countered. “I don’t even remember Mother and if they stole both of them from us, shouldn’t they pay for that?”

  “Judgment belongs to the Lord.”

  “Yes, and he’s done a smashing job of administering it, hasn’t he?” Despite the sarcastic nature of my words, I could not help how subdued my voice had become. I sighed. “We both agree they’re dangerous men, and yet you’d have me burn the book rather than use it. Father knew witchcraft, you say? Well, maybe you and I can as well?”

  Jeffrey recoiled, the look on his face laden with revulsion. “As though I’d ever. And that is a lot to presume without bartering your soul attempting it.”

  “Perhaps not, actually.” Leaning forward, I lowered my voice as though about to trade secrets with my brother. “The man I was sent to kill made an attempt on my life first and I broke his spell, all without knowing what I was doing. Ever since, I swear to you, I’ve been afflicted by this premonition daring me to do more, and I’ve been tempted to succumb. Because if I could thwart one of them without even trying, imagine what I could do if I actually studied the book and learned their magic.”

  “You’re proposing to damn yourself,” Jeffrey spat, “And to what end?”

  “Theirs,” I said, rising to a stand. My voice rose in volume once more, my feet pacing away from the table a few steps before I turned to face my brother again. “I might not be able to return to my life as a mercenary anyway, after this last fiasco. Some good might as well come of it.”

  “I think you’re confusing the term ‘good’ with something else.”

  “I’m saying that I might have inherited Father’s talents, and I’m not bound by oath to avoid using them. Admit it. A part of you wants Mother’s killers to meet their end.”

  “No, I won’t, because that part doesn’t exist in me the same way it does you.” Jeffrey slowly rose to his feet as well, making up the distance between us and stopping just short of where I stood. “I don’t have the desire to exchange one form of bloodshed with another. Father was reckless. He played with darkness and it cost him our mother. In the end, he didn’t even use his talents to save himself and do you know what I think?”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “I believe it’s because he was ready for his final judgment.”

  I scoffed. “He was sick,” I said, “And concerned about me.”

  “He knew the evil of his ways and had finally made penance for them!” Jeffrey said, countering. His voice rose in volume, a defiance in his eyes as we stared down each other. “If he hadn’t started down such a path in the first place, nobody would have had to perish.”

  “Listen to yourself. You hide your contempt under the guise of piety. Little wonder you and I have had not had many kind words for each other through the years.”

  Jeffrey retorted through gritted teeth, his words laced with vitriol. “Because you are just like him, Christian, and you don’t seem to give a damn about anybody but your
self.”

  He encroached on me a step and I backed away. As he closed the distance between us once more, I felt shivers run through me, my blood turning cold as the hearth behind me seemed to turn warmer. Concern ran as an undercurrent to Jeffrey’s expression regardless of the callousness of his words, but I had closed myself off to it. “Then absolve yourself of my sins, dear brother. You are no longer responsible for my soul.”

  “Christian…” The evocation of my name was not enough to stop me from pivoting on my heels and turning for the door. Jeffrey remained standing in place as though frozen there while I stormed out the house, not looking back once during my entire march to the barn. Shutting myself inside, I flinched against the smell of the animals, plucking a lantern from the shelves where they were kept and setting myself upon the task of lighting it. As the glow from its flame filled the area around me, I sat on the ground and fought the urge to surrender into tears.

  The spine of the book dug into the small of my back. I reached for it in frustration, tugging it out and tossing it onto the ground with groan. As it landed, the crease in its spine forced it open, splaying out more of its Latin gibberish for the eye to behold. The flame flickered enough to cast more light on it and I frowned, holding this new image in my mind of Father reading words just like this.

  Whether it was this thought or the dance of the flame which compelled me to pick it up, I didn’t know. Either way, the volume found its way into my hand again and I studied the page, sighing and flipping back to the page where pronunciations had been scrawled beneath foreign words. There laid the term again – Evocatio Spiritualis – daring me in defiance to speak it aloud again.

  I swallowed down a lump forming in my throat. Temptation built to a fever pitch within me, compelling me to my feet with the lantern in one hand and the book in the other. My gaze fixed upon at the barn door I had just shut moments ago. “Evocatio Spiritualis,” I said, causing a surge of tingles to race through me, some unknown energy source creeping in through my skin. The words gained more clarity as I repeated them. My voice grew louder, my hands shaking as I glanced down at the next forbidden term scrawled in the book. Something wanted to escape – begged for it until I could hold it back no longer and barked out another phrase.