A Grave Magic: The Shadow Sorceress Book One

by Sheehan, Bilinda

  There was blood dried onto the side of his neck, but his shirt was dark and I couldn’t tell how much he’d actually bled.

  Jessica wandered into my line of vision and I glared at her. How could she do that to her own father? He loved her, raised her, cared for her, and even now, he would still accept her back into his embrace despite everything.

  I dragged my gaze away from Graham; there was nothing I could do for him while I was tied up. What I needed was a plan, a way out, but my head ached and it was difficult enough to focus in on the other people gathered in the cemetery without also trying to work out a plan of escape.

  “I’m sorry we had to meet like this.”

  I jerked my head around in an attempt to see over my shoulder but the woman who had spoken was too far behind me for me to see her clearly. From the position I sat in, when I craned my neck, I could just make out a fuzzy human shape.

  “No, you’re not. If you were, then we wouldn’t have met like this,” I said, trying to wriggle my hands through the loop on the ropes.

  Each time I moved my wrists, it bit a little further into me and it was a struggle to keep the pain from showing on my face.

  The stranger laughed and stepped into view. Her dark hair fell across her face, her fringe heavy, a blunt cut that on most people would have looked out of place but on her looked as though it was created just for her sharp facial features.

  She watched me with dark eyes lined with heavy black kohl, and when she smiled, her blood red lips parted slightly to reveal teeth that would have rivalled any Hollywood smile.

  She wasn’t beautiful in the traditional sense, but there was something about her. Something that made me want to shake free of the ropes binding my wrists and crawl across the grass towards her before I debased myself at her feet.

  As though she knew exactly what was going on inside my head, her smile widened and she planted her tiny hands on her narrow hips.

  “Amber, I think you and I would have been the best of friends,” she said, moving towards me.

  “What gives you that impression?” I asked from between gritted teeth.

  The pain of the ropes burning through my skin was the only thing allowing me to keep a somewhat clear head around her. How was she making me feel like this?

  “Because we belong together, like two peas in pod,” she said, and this time there was an edge of power to her voice. Power that made my bones ache and teeth chatter in my head.

  “What are you?”

  My question seemed to surprise her and she stared at me, her expression genuinely quizzical. She was probably trying to work out whether I was being sarcastic again, or if I really didn’t know what she was.

  And I didn’t know what she was. I had an inclination, but it was the type of thought that the moment I’d had it, I’d immediately forced it into the darkest recess of my mind and locked it in place.

  What she was simply wasn’t possible.

  “I’m your sister…” she said.

  She spoke so matter-of-factly that for a moment I just stared at her; the cogs in my brain had ground to a halt, refusing to move past the words she had just spoken.

  Sister? She couldn’t possibly mean it in the literal sense. I didn’t have any sisters; I was an only child. Was she just speaking in riddles and she meant she was a witch just like me?

  Laughter bubbled up from my throat and spilled out across my lips, before dancing on the night air.

  Her expression changed, darkened, as she watched me carefully, and I cut my laughter off as I watched her fists tighten.

  “What exactly do you find so funny?”

  “You’re not my sister. I don’t have a sister; I don’t have any siblings at all.”

  “And that’s where you’re wrong. I’m not your mother’s daughter, but I am your father’s daughter, which makes you and I half-sisters. But sisters none the less.”

  I felt my mouth drop open and I was utterly powerless to stop it. “My father didn’t have any other children,” I started to say, and then I paused, something tugging at the far recesses of my mind. Something put away that I wasn’t supposed to remember.

  The memory of my father filled my head: the night he had watched me receive my academic achievement award, the pride in his eyes as he’d watched me step down off the stage….

  My mind flicked forward, and I remembered standing outside the school entrance, his hand on my shoulder as he told me he was leaving. That….

  “Oh God,” I said, my voice a broken mess as my mind continued to play the memory out in my head. The memory my mother had hidden from me, to keep me safe. Just as she’d hidden my magic, forcing me to believe that I was powerless in this world….

  “He was leaving my mother for yours,” I said, my voice cracking over the words.

  The other woman standing in front of me nodded, her lips a thin line as she continued to watch me carefully.

  “He loved you, but not your mother; he was leaving to be with us…” she said, finishing the thought for me and utterly shattering the memory I had of my father.

  “He was going to rip our family apart all because he’d fallen in love with someone else,” I said, my voice a hollow shell of what it had been.

  “We don’t chose who we love, Amber. You must have figured that out by now.”

  She crouched down next to me and stared into my eyes, eyes that somehow seemed familiar. They were his eyes; I’d gotten my eyes from my mother, but this woman crouched down in front of me had my father’s eyes.

  It didn’t feel right. He was dead; I shouldn’t have felt as though I was staring at him.

  “You know why you’re here, don’t you?” she asked, her voice soft, practically a feather-light touch that gently brushed against my skin.

  I shook my head and watched her reaction carefully. There was a moment where her eyes darkened and I could see the gathering storm reflected in her gaze. And just as quickly as it had arrived, it was gone again; a smile curled her lips and, without warning, her hand darted out and closed around my shoulder.

  “Allow me to enlighten you, then,” she said, her smile still in place, but her voice was anything but friendly.

  My head slammed back against the tombstone as power surged through my body, making it almost impossible to breathe, let alone think clearly.

  She pumped her power down inside me. Like a pressure hose cleaning the dirt from a car, I felt her clear away every magical defence that I’d ever created within myself, and some I hadn’t put in place, but I could feel my mother’s fingerprint all over them.

  I wanted to scream, to somehow stop what she was doing, but the surge seemed never-ending and my body continued to drink down every last drop she poured into me.

  Her hand fell away from me and I stared at her, my vision clouded by magic, hers and mine. The sound of her breathing heavily next to me told me it had taken more of a toll on her to do what she had, and part of me couldn’t help but wonder if she’d expected such a price to be paid.

  “What have you done to me?” I asked, my voice strange and hollow to my own ears.

  “Now there can be no secrets or lies between us. You will know what I know; you will know the truth.”

  I tried to shake my head, to shake whatever spell she had cast over me off, but it was no use.

  “Remember what you did, Amber, remember that night.”

  I sucked in a deep breath and bit down hard on the inside of my cheek as I fought to fight the memory. There was more to the story, things I didn’t want to remember, things that would do more harm than good if I knew….

  My father’s eyes were filled with pity as I pleaded with him, and still he shook his head.

  Chapter 33

  “Please, Daddy, why not, why can’t you stay?”

  “Sweetheart, you know if I could, I would, but I have to go. You knew this was goodbye,” he said, leaning down to plant a kiss on the top of my head.

  Tears streaked down my cheeks, hot and heavy, as I grabbed at hi
s jacket, fighting to keep him. Fighting to hold him in place. If he couldn’t leave, then everything would be fine; they’d work it out and things could go back to normal.

  “Fredrick, for goddess sake, tell her the truth, tell her the real reason you’re leaving.”

  My mother’s voice interjected, harsh and punishing, just as she always was. In all the years I’d known her, she had never changed.

  “Grace, she’s upset. Now is not the time,” he said through clenched teeth.

  I watched them bicker and resentment grew in my chest. All they ever did was fight, back and forth. It was a never-ending merry-go-round of arguments.

  “Tell her about your other daughter, the one whose birthday party you’ve been planning for weeks….”

  My world rocked on its axis as my mother’s words sank in.

  Other daughter.

  He had another daughter.

  He was leaving us because of his other family.

  Suddenly it all made sense. The secretive phone calls, their constant arguments, his prolonged business trips. He despised us so much he had another family tucked away somewhere else.

  “Grace, why can’t you ever leave….” My father’s voice broke off as the ground beneath our feet cracked and split.

  I wasn’t afraid; for the first time in my short life, I didn’t have to be afraid anymore. I was in control now, and that was how it would stay.

  “Come forth and wreak thy will upon those who have wronged your Mistress!” The voice that called from my lips wasn’t mine.

  It was deeper, older, and filled with a power I hadn’t known existed in the world until that very moment. But now that I knew it was real, I didn’t want to ever let it go.

  This was mine. The world was mine for the taking and there wasn’t a power on earth that could stand against me.

  The demon erupted from the earth, its claws scrabbling along the cement as it fought its way up to the surface.

  Fear crept into my veins. Calling it to the surface hadn’t required any thought. I was simply angry and it had appeared, but now that it was here, what was I supposed to do with it? How was I supposed to control something that had just clawed its way out of Hell?

  The connection between me and the beast weakened, my power wavering as I stared it down. Its eyes were two black pits and I imagined the souls of the damned falling into them, never to be seen again in this life or the next.

  It took a step towards me and smiled, its mouth filled with a mixture of razor sharp fangs and lethal looking needles. If it got a hold of me….

  “Amber, what have you done?” my mother said from somewhere behind me, the terror in her voice making me afraid.

  She was never frightened of anything. There was no creature too dangerous, no spell too complicated, that she couldn’t find a way to work it all to her advantage, until now.

  “Get her out of here, Grace!” my father shouted, moving between me and the advancing creature.

  I watched as he drew his athame from where he’d hidden it in the back of his waistband. The blade glinted in the artificial light as he moved in on the creature and stabbed it directly in the heart.

  There was a moment where the world itself seemed to hold its breath. The creature’s interest in me waned and it directed a quizzical look at my father instead.

  “Why interfere when you know the price that must be paid?” The sound was low and gravelly, as though the earth itself was shifting beneath our feet to give it a voice.

  “You cannot have her, she is just a child.” The pleading in my father’s voice broke my heart and I attempted to jerk free of the grip my mother had on my arm.

  “She summoned me, but she is not yet strong enough to contain me. The price is death. I will be free….”

  It started to move again, and my father’s blade once more crashed against the hard leathery shell of its skin. The beast roared as the blade sank home, disappearing into a gap between the creature’s chest plates.

  “Grace, move her out of here now!” His voice was a command my mother couldn’t ignore. Wrapping her arms around my waist, she dragged me backwards as the creature grabbed my father.

  The rest of the nightmare was as it always had been.

  I fought against my mother’s grip as she pulled me away from the horror unfolding in front of the school. The screams of my father piercing my eardrums as he was slowly ripped asunder.

  I knew every bite, every wound that was inflicted upon him. This was the one thing my mother hadn’t taken from me. No doubt it was her way of punishing me, allowing me to relive the horror, but never knowing why it had happened in the first place.

  Chapter 34

  “You remember, don’t you?”

  My head snapped up as her voice cut through the memory.

  “Why would I do that?” I said, my voice trembling.

  I’d killed him; I was the reason he was dead. This whole farce of me coming to America to find out what had killed him, well, that’s all it was; a ridiculous wild goose chase. One my mother had set me on, knowing the truth of what had happened that night.

  Suddenly, her treatment of me made sense; she wasn’t disappointed in me, well, not because I didn’t have any power, anyway. That was a lie. The power I had was something even she couldn’t rival. She had been disgusted at me, maybe even afraid.

  Was that the reason she’d sent me away so quickly? Was I that much of a monster that she needed me to be as far away from her as was possible?

  “She didn’t send you away because she was afraid, she sent you here because she hated you. If you had stayed and grown up there, you’d have eventually remembered everything that happened, and she didn’t want to risk that. She didn’t want to risk anyone else falling victim to your spoilt little temper tantrums.”

  Her words hurt, but I couldn’t deny them. It was the truth; my father had died because of my temper, because I couldn’t have my own way, and he’d suffered immeasurably as a consequence.

  “I still don’t see why you’ve brought me here. What has any of this got to do with Christina, or Graham, or any of the other people you’ve hurt…? If it was me you wanted, if you wanted to hurt me, then why not just get it over with. You’ve certainly got enough power to do it.” I couldn’t keep my voice, even as I spat the words out at her.

  She smiled, and for the first time since I’d laid eyes on her, there was a hint of sadness in her face.

  “He was my father, too, and you took him from me; you took my chance of getting to know him. Of having a real family life.”

  “I didn’t steal that chance; I didn’t get it myself…. He was too busy splitting his time between our families to spend any real time with either of us.”

  My mind was overrun with painful memories. The constant business trips, the broken promises. He’d never been there when he was needed, not until the very end, and then for some reason he’d saved my ungrateful ass.

  “We could have been great together. This world is overdue for a wakeup call. They thought they could control what we were, that they could extinguish the best of us, and for a time they did … and then, we were born,” she said, pushing up onto her feet and making her way slowly over to Graham.

  She leaned into him and trailed her hand down his face; a mere brush of her fingers, but it was enough to wake him up.

  “What’s going on?” he said, struggling against the ropes that held him to the tree.

  “They decreed we should die and I don’t agree. Without us, they are nothing; they’d still be scurrying around in the darkness afraid of the monsters that went bump in the night.”

  She was beginning to ramble, and I fought the ropes holding me a little harder. Why, if I could set fire to a vampire the night before, could I not do it again, when I really needed it?

  She moved away from Graham and he shot me a concerned look before his eyes fixated on something behind me. The way his face softened and the way he fought a little harder against his bonds told me it was Jessica he co
uld see.

  I wanted to shout at him, to tell him not to be ridiculous, that his daughter was gone, but it would have been pointless. With her standing right there in front of him, he wasn’t going to believe for a second that she was capable of the terrible things she had done.

  He wouldn’t believe any of it; all he would see was his daughter, the little girl he had loved and raised all those years. There would be no convincing him of the monster she truly was.

  “What am I supposed to call you?” I said, putting a little more weight into the ropes as I realised the direction the other woman was taking.

  She’d circled around the graveyard and was now paused next to Christina. The child was terrified, her eyes wide, as she stared up at the monster standing next to her, my sister.

  “My name is Lily, although I can’t help but think it’s a little fluffy sounding. I’m not really sure what our father was thinking when he called me that, but he chose it, so I can’t change it.”

  “Tell me why you’re doing this, Lily. Tell me what it is you want from me and let everyone else go….”

  “I want your power. It’s not as though you understand or can even use it. Your mother was too weak-minded to raise a child with the power you had, that’s why she bound your gifts. She made you weak, made you think you had no power, when really it was her all along….”

  “Then take it, but you don’t need to hurt Christina or Graham to do it. I’ll give it to you….”

  She stared at me and nodded. “I know you will, but Christina, here, is an integral part of the spell.”

  A shudder of fear tracked its way down my spine and I shook my head.

  The vision I’d had of Christina in my arms, the symbols marked on her skin, the blood that soaked into her nightclothes … it had been a vision of what was to come, not what had already happened.

  “That’s not possible, she’s a child, you don’t need her….”

  “Enough!” Lily said, her voice filled with power, and my head started to ache.