nancy werlock's diary s01 - episodes 1-7

by Julie Ann Dawson

  “I wanted a baby,” says Ruth. My eggs were bad, though. And I wasn’t getting any younger. Fred and Vivika had their kids. I wanted a baby. Harold, he didn’t want to deal with the doctors and whatnot. Said that if God wanted us to have a child we would and that it wasn’t right to artificially make babies. Maybe he was right. Maybe that’s why my baby had leukemia. Wasn’t just my eggs bad. Was my womb, too.”

  Ruth sits back down at the table. She folds her hands in her lap and keeps her head down. “Vivika knew Harold wasn’t having none of dealing with doctors. She said she’d help. I told her, no black magic. I didn’t want a baby made with black magic. And she said no. She said she’s donate her eggs and she’s go with me to the doctors and be there to help. Harold didn’t even have to know. We’d let him think April was naturally conceived. I said no doctor gonna keep that knowledge from a man like that. She said not to worry. She’d make sure the doctors kept quiet. God forgive me. I knew what she meant. Seen her use her powers on men before. But I figured it was just a little white lie. No harm.”

  “Harold doesn’t know?”

  Ruth shakes her head. “It was a difficult pregnancy. I wasn’t exactly the ideal age for childbearing. Doctor wasn’t sure she was going to make it. She was born premature. I think it was the stress of Vivika being murdered that did it. But—”

  “Go on, Ruth. What happened?”

  “Few days before, I had the strangest conversation with Vivika. She came over with a bunch of her collectibles. She said she wanted April to have them. I told her that was the sort of thing she should give to her son, but she said no boy had any business playing with dolls. I figured she was maybe feeling guilty, since some of them had been Mother’s and Dad had given them all to her instead of splitting them between us kids. I think she knew what was going to happen. She was trying to set things right.”

  “You think Vivika knew her ex was going to kill her?”

  “She was psychic, right? Wouldn’t a person who can see the future know that?”

  I just nod. It isn’t uncommon for mundanes to confuse psions with seers. But while Vivika couldn’t look into the future, she may well have known what her ex was planning. But if she knew, why wouldn’t she have just stopped him?

  “The last thing she said was that I shouldn’t worry about the baby. No matter what happens, the baby would be fine. Then she was dead, but my baby lived. She shouldn’t have. Doctors said it was a miracle she survived. For the longest time, I told myself her aunt was her guardian angel watching over her and keeping her safe. But Vivika isn’t no angel, Ms. Werlock.

  “April became really panicked the year before she died. She tried to hide it from me, but I knew she was getting powers. I had grown up with Vivika. I knew what I was seeing. Her leukemia had been in remission but then came back after she started playing around with those powers. I told her it was going to kill her. She would tell me to shut up and that all she needed was to get into the College and she could find a cure for herself. At first I thought she meant going to school after she graduated. But that…wasn’t what she meant.”

  “She was talking about the College of Psionics. We found an application she made with the College.”

  “You people have your own colleges?”

  “They aren’t exactly like Rutgers or Rowan, but yeah. Did she ever say how she found out about the College? Did your father know about the magic in the family? Could he have said something to her?”

  “Dad knew. But he never talked about it. He said it killed Mother. He was very upset when Vivika developed powers. He wouldn’t have encouraged April, God rest his soul.”

  “Is it possible Vivika was talking to her?”

  “I guess so. Considering she’s bothering Houston now she could have been talking to April then. That would explain a lot. Vivika putting ideas into her head would explain her mood swings and carrying on around Houston’s girlfriends.”

  “Houston and April were close. It isn’t unusual for younger siblings to get jealous that someone might steal away their big brother or sister.”

  “No, she wasn’t jealous. Just the opposite. She kept going on about how Houston should get married or find himself a girl. She’s try to set him up with girls herself. Little Miss Matchmaker.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like Vivika’s doing,” I chuckle. “She’s made it clear to Houston that she wants a grandchild.”

  “Good Lord.”

  “Don’t worry. He’s on to her. Houston is pretty smart.”

  “He was always a good boy. So what did Vivika do?”

  “There was a man from one of the other colleges investigating the circumstances of Vivika’s death. But I think you’ve actually helped explain a lot of things. I honestly don’t know why Vivika would be so concerned about this. The fact that April was Vivika’s biological daughter explains why April developed powers. And if Vivika was communicating with April that means she wasn’t ‘missing’ just shielding herself from scrying.”

  “She killed that man to keep the secret?”

  I pat Ruth’s hand. “You know, when I first realized what Vivika was up to, I thought she was just being an overbearing Mother. Then I started hearing all the rumors and there were all of these unexplained gaps and I thought she was up to something sinister. But you know, I think she’s still just an overbearing mother protecting her kids. And her sister.”

  “I don’t want to think about her killing anyone to protect me.”

  “No, I think I may have made a bad assumption. Nothing you’ve told me would be reason to kill him. There is no telling what else he was working on. His death is probably unrelated. But frankly this is all more soap opera than crime drama stuff.”

  “What am I supposed to do about my husband?”

  “I think you should talk to him. And I think you should tell him the truth.”

  “The truth?”

  “OK, maybe not all of the truth. But he needs to know about April. And if you wanted me to be there when you told him, I would. I really think it is time the two of you talked. About a lot of things.”

  Ruth looks up at me and smiles. “Ms. Werlock, if you are half as good at this demonology business as you are counseling, my nephew is in good hands.” She pours me another glass of iced tea. “But I swear to God, if that boy comes over here one day introducing me to some demonic girlfriend, I will personally drag him by the ear to Reverend Walker.”

  “Ruth, if he is ever so stupid as to get mixed up with a demonic girlfriend, I will exorcise the bitch myself.”

  A Bloody Mess

  August 20th

  “Why would she hide that from me?” asks Houston. We’re back in the Archmage’s office. Steve is there, along with Necromancer Morton from Lansfield.

  “Parents have a lot of strange reasons for keeping secrets from their kids,” I say. “We were all so worried about wild, complicated conspiracies that we forgot to consider the mundane.”

  “Occam’s Razor,” says Morton. “The hypothesis with the fewest assumptions wins.”

  “She and Ruth had planned to keep the truth of April’s birth from Harold. It makes sense that she simply wouldn’t want you to know because you might tell your uncle,” says the Archmage.

  “And if Vivika was using April as an anchor then that would explain why she couldn’t be summoned. And it also explains why nobody could find her. No one would have thought to look there,” says Steve.

  “It also explains how April knew how to get in touch with the College of Psionics in order to put in an application,” I say.

  “Still doesn’t explain why my mother died in the first place,” says Houston. “Aunt Ruth said she thinks Mom knew?”

  “A strategic decision,” says Morton. “It is not unprecedented for a powerful witch to willingly cede physical life in exchange for a long-term advantage. As a spirit your mother has had free reign to watch over you and allow you to live a normal life. She was something of a rock star. Your life would have been very different had she ra
ised you.”

  “Guardian angel,” I mutter. “An annoying, egotistical, pushy guardian angel.”

  “This is too neat,” says Steve.

  “It’s the simplest answer,” says the Archmage. “And an answer I can live with.”

  “Well, that makes one of us.”

  “Well, since that is settled, we should turn our attention back to the matter of Justicar Warren,” says Morton.

  “Who’s Justicar Warren?” asks Houston.

  “We’ll let you guys get back to work,” I say as I motion for Houston to follow me.

  Houston stands, but instead of following me just looks at Morton. “He died of a heart attack like the other guy. Something is hunting witches.”

  “Houston, we should go.”

  “What did you tell him?” asks Steve.

  “Nothing,” says Morton. “Did you just read my thoughts?”

  “That’s not possible,” says the Archmage. “I would have sensed him activating his powers.”

  Houston fights back a smirk. “That’s assuming I turned them off before I came in.”

  Steve jumps up. “Damn you! You punk, do you have any idea what I could do to you for this?”

  “I don’t answer to you!”

  “I’m a Justicar of the Council. Like Hell you don’t.”

  “Enough!” I scream. “I have had just enough of this bullshit from both of you!”

  “Nancy—” says the Archmage calmly.

  “You!” I point at Houston. “You had no business reading Necromancer Morton’s thoughts. None! Just because you can use a power doesn’t mean you should. There are things going on you don’t need to know!”

  “Nancy,” says the Archmage again.

  “And you!” I point at Steve. “Don’t you ever pull that ‘I’m a Justicar. Obey me’ crap with my apprentice. He got thrown into the middle of a train wreck because of his crazy mother and doesn’t need your testosterone-induced raging.”

  “Speaking of raging, Madame Warlock.” I stop and look at the Archmage. “Take a deep breath. You’re…scaring everyone.”

  I take a deep breath and look at my own aura. If mundanes could see my aura, they would think I was a female version of the Human Torch.

  “Is she at risk of spontaneously combusting when she does that?” asks Houston.

  “Spontaneous combustion? No,” says Archmage Lawrence. “Spontaneous summoning of Hellfire? She’d survive it. We on the other hand—”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. I take a few deep breaths. “Steve, I’m sorry. Everyone, I’m sorry.”

  Steve starts laughing. “You know, occasionally I need this subtle reminders about why it is a bad idea to make you mad.” He looks at Houston but points at me. “You know she set my hair on fire once.”

  “I did not set your hair on fire. It…was just a little singed.”

  “I had second-degree burns.”

  “You had one burn spot.”

  “I still have a scar.”

  “Fascinating,” says Morton as he hugs the far wall. “Evokers,” he sighs.

  “I’m sorry, Necromancer Morton,” says Houston. “I’m just frustrated with all the damn secrecy. I can’t help if I don’t know what is going on. I get the importance of hiding things from normal people. I don’t get the point of hiding stuff from each other if we are all supposed to be in this together.”

  “Apology accepted, young man. And you are, I suspect, correct.”

  “Go ahead, Craig,” says Steve. “Tell us what you found out. What killed Sonny? And I’ll take the heat from the Council for authorizing the information.”

  “Better you than me,” Morton says. “Well, technically, it was a heart attack that killed him. He went into cardiac arrest and, without anyone around to help him, died. However, it is what triggered the cardiac arrest that is intriguing. And disturbing. Our medium attempted to commune with him to get additional details, but was unable to locate him. He didn’t linger around his body. So we…had to animate him. It was the only way to get the information we needed.”

  “Wait, you mean like—” begins Houston.

  “Let him finish. Please,” says Steve through grating teeth as he glares at Morton.

  “His corpse was able to communicate the physical details of his moments before death. It identified an unusual pressure in what we were able to pinpoint to the medulla oblongata. The part of the brain that regulates breathing, heart rate, and such. This information allowed us to focus our search. We found unusual bruising in the region. There were no corresponding external injuries that would explain how the medulla oblongata would have been damaged. Stress damage to the blood vessels seems to be localized. Whoever did this specifically targeted the blood in that region to pulsate, causing the bruising that led to heart failure.”

  “Some sort of spell?” asks Houston. “Are there spells that can do that?”

  “Necromancy is filled with incantations that can target specific organs,” says Steve.

  “Indeed, Justicar,” says Morton.

  “I don’t understand,” I say. “If you want to cause a heart attack, why not just straight for the heart?”

  “Because when someone has a heart attack, doctors check the heart thoroughly. Irregularities would be noted. And the truth is, if not for the unusual circumstances of the other Justicars’ deaths, we wouldn’t have even bothered with animating him. It looked like a mundane heart attack.”

  “So did they all die from heart attacks?” asks Houston.

  “No, this doesn’t fit the MO of the other deaths,” replies Steve. “The others were killed in staged accidents. Some sort of mind control was used to cause mundanes to black out. Looked like traffic accidents.”

  “It does, however, fit with what happened to Theomancer Mortellaro,” says Morton. “Once we realized what we were dealing with, we checked and found the same bruising.”

  “So the good news is, Sonny and Mortellaro weren’t victims of our Justicar killer. The bad news is, they are victims of a whole different killer. Wonderful,” says Steve. “So I need a list of all Necromancers who would be capable of performing this ritual or whatever it is.”

  “That would be none,” says Morton. “It’s…Forbidden Magic.”

  “Forbidden Magic? Could you please clarify?” asks the Archmage.

  “Yes, there are incantations that have that sort of precision control over blood vessels and organs. However, those incantations require either physical contact with the patient or close proximity. They are also rather slow incantations to initiate. They aren’t instant effects. We use them all the time in medical treatments. We’ve made stunning breakthroughs using these techniques with dementia patients. If only we could recreate the results using mundane methodologies.”

  “There was nobody in the room. I did the investigation myself. No evidence of a struggle. No evidence of a person present either in the room or nearby in the astral plane. And Sonny would have kicked the crap out of anyone who even started trying this stuff with him. He wouldn’t just stand still and let it happen.”

  “Which is my point, Justicar. This specific style of incantation would have required the practitioner to pinpoint the victim from a distance and without line of sight. Which is why it is Forbidden.”

  “OK, so, it’s Forbidden,” says Houston. “But that doesn’t mean you guys don’t still have the rituals lying around somewhere. Forbidden doesn’t mean unavailable.”

  “When a college deems an incantation Forbidden, the books containing the incantation are destroyed and references to it blotted from the libraries,” says the Archmage. ‘They are neither taught nor spoken of.”

  “Yeah, right,” says Houston. “I have read too many comic books to buy that line.”

  “Houston!” I say.

  “Oh, come on! The old ‘forbidden magic’ shtick. Really? Let me ask this. When was the last time this forbidden magic was used?”

  “Two hundred years ago,” replies Morton. “When the College executed the
last practitioner of it.”

  “And how old are you?”

  “I’m 57.”

  “And you know about a form of magic that has been forbidden for two hundred years…how?”

  “I’m starting to like him,” says Steve.

  “Obviously, forbidden magics can’t be completely removed from the banks of knowledge. Otherwise if they resurface we won’t know what we are dealing with. The old haemomancy tomes are still held at the Nexus, but obviously aren’t part of the general collection.”

  “Haemomancy?” Houston asks.

  “Blood Magic,” replies Morton.

  “Like in Dragon Age?”

  “You are such a geek,” I sigh.

  “OK, talk to me about Blood Magic, Necromancer,” says Steve. “What does the College know?”

  “We may need to conference Chancellor Vianu.”

  * * *

  “Houston, in the name of all that is good and holy, don’t speak unless spoken to. Understand?” I say to him as the Archmage prepares the conference call.

  “OK, boss.”

  “I’m serious!”

  “OK! If I have a question or snide comment, I’ll just think it at you.”

  “Good boy.” I pat him on the shoulder.

  “He’ll be fine,” says Steve. “Not like we’re dealing with The Nine or Advocates.”

  “I have had my fill of Advocates to last a lifetime.”

  “Yep, seems Houston wasn’t the only one who got thrown into the deep end of the pool recently.”

  “I just wanted to run my mom’s shop. Take on an apprentice. Maybe hire a brownie to do light housework.”

  “I can recommend an agency.”

  “You deal with these people all the time. I don’t know how you do it.”

  “Just have to learn how to navigate the bureaucracy and speak the jargon.”

  Archmage Lawrence invites us into the conference room. There are three monitors set up side by side on the wall. Chancellor Straus of the College of Evocation is on the left monitor. Chancellor Vianu of the College of Necromancy is on the right. Franco Magus of the School of Theomancy is on the monitor in the center.