Rain began to fall, and to me the very damp of the air tasted sharp with magic. I could feel the bright aura growing around me, and see it reflected in the wide eyes of my victims.
“Clean.” My voice was thick with magical energy as I laid a hand on the head of the first soldier.
He cried out, more from shock than pain, but it was enough to make the others jump and struggle to get free.
“Hold ‘em fast!” Matherson bellowed from behind me.
I was focused on what I was doing, the power flowing from my hands into the man’s mind, seeking out the memories and razing them from his brain. It wasn’t something I did lightly. To take part of a man’s life, some might say was as bad as killing him. But I left him his childhood, his adolescence, his first love and first heartbreak. I left the things that mattered while stripping back the influences that had corrupted him.
He wasn’t a Mage, none of them were. They were nothing but men who had wanted something better and who had believed the lies and shimmering dreams Duine had floated before them. ‘Join me and I’ll make you rich and powerful’. Men were weak and Duine used his magic to exploit them.
Maybe I did too, in my way.
As the first man fell to the ground, I moved onto the next, working my way down the line. With that part of their life gone, we could let them go and they had the option of starting over and becoming better men. It was still a punishment of sorts, but I also thought of it as a kindness. Sometimes I wished someone would excise all those bad memories from me; the people I’d killed; the look in their eyes as they died.
At the end of the ceremony, I was exhausted, though I tried not to show it. The prisoners were dealt with, and my followers were happy. Even Eirin gave me a ‘clever boy’ smile.
All very good; but now what?
I had a handful of people with which to fight the army of the King’s Alliance, and they would be coming for me even harder than before.
What now for the Order of the Templar?
TEN
EMMA
I walked through the fog into Stonehollow Cemetery.
Jupiter and Kevin trailed slightly behind. Stopping inside the wrought iron arches, I gave them a chance to catch up. The freezing air clung to my skin. When I stood still, the cold intensified. The snow-chipped wind sapped the warmth from my blood and I bounced on the toes of my boots, bunching my hands in the fabric of my sweater vest to keep the chill away.
Should’ve brought my coat. I shook my head at myself.
Before the sun rose, early Salem mornings were dark and bitter cold. Guess that’s why these classes are usually inside, I thought.
I shouldn’t have been surprised though. I was almost never all the way prepared. Basically, the total opposite of a boy scout.
Jupiter and Kevin were close. I started walking again. They fell in step beside me.
“God, this place gives me the creeps,” Jupiter said as she glanced around herself, her eyes wide.
Kevin flattened the slight poof of auburn hair against his forehead, probably going for an extra square inch of warmth. “If by ‘the creeps’ you mean ‘the get-me-the-fuck-out-of-heres,’ then I agree,” he said.
A silvery mist settled over the rich, damp soil. I had the irrational fear that I would slip through the mulched earth and into one of the graves below. I managed to ignore it.
Stonehollow had an entombing quality about it. Whether a person was living or dead didn’t matter. While you walked in the graveyard, your soul hung in the cemetery’s clutches like the mist. I nestled my hands between my shirt and sweater vest, ignoring the goose pimples on my arms.
“Are we almost there?” Kevin asked. His teeth chattered. Jupiter wrapped an arm around him, lending a generous portion of her coat.
“I think it’s just past this little grove,” I said. We scanned for the grave our class was meeting at, but the shroud of mist made it difficult. We walked through an alley of vine-covered tombs, each in a different stage of decay. The stately marble structures had large open faces. You could see stone coffins hidden in the shadows. And the gnarled faces of gargoyles above the open doors.
The cemetery was vast and littered with the veiny roots of haunted looking trees. Their limbs dropped and bent, trunks twisted into the ground at odd, ugly angles. One patch of trees ran almost down the length of the cemetery, and we neared its center slowly. There were still several minutes until my wrist watch struck seven.
Kevin sighed. “Professor Undress-her better have some kind of magical heat set up over there, or I am gonna be pissed.”
“Don’t piss out here; it’ll freeze to your leg,” Jupiter said. “And stop calling Professor Draper that! It’s inappropriate.”
“I can’t,” Kevin said unapologetically. “It’s just so clear that every chick in Salem wants that professor to undress her as soon as humanly possible. It’s sickeningly obvious. Not that I’m an exception...”
Kevin quirked an eyebrow suggestively.
“I mean, honestly, what’d you expect, Kev?” I asked, raising my eyebrows back at him.
Yeah, Jupiter agreed, nodding. “I mean, think about it. He’s the first decent looking professor we’ve ever had, and he appears to be younger than a hundred and fifty, so—by Elmington faculty standards—he’s a certified hunk. It’s not his fault he isn’t a gargoyle.”
Understatement of the century.
The absolute last thing I needed was Kevin and Jupiter picking up on my feelings for Stone. They would never ever ever let me live it down. Lying was never part of my skill set, and lying to my friends was damn near impossible.
What about lying to myself?
I was past denying I felt something for Stone. The way my heart raced when I caught his eye… but I sure as hell wasn’t past hiding it.
“I guess you’re right,” Kevin said with a reluctant sigh. “I suppose Professor Draper does have a certain intrigue to it.”
Jupiter laughed and shook her head. “Glad you’re seeing the light,” she said. “The slightly less inappropriate light.”
“Guys.” I stepped over a moss-dampened log and pointed through a deep green throng of leaves. “There they are.”
“Where?” Jupiter asked.
“At the grave beside the tomb with the angel carving, I think,” Kevin answered.
Our classmates huddled around an imposing rectangular headstone, still too far away to make out with the naked eye.
“Hey Jupe, can I borrow your eye glass for a sec?” I asked.
“Sure thing.” She reached into her trouser pocket and tossed the chained monocle my way. I caught it and brought it to my eye. I recognized a few faces, but there were a few people missing: we weren’t the last to arrive. Out of morbid curiosity, I lowered the eyeglass and magnified the image on the center of the headstone.
I squinted at the faded etching: Harriet Heraldsonian 1509-2004. There was a quote beneath her name, seemingly something she’d said in her lifetime. There was an abstract carving of a hippogriff inside a coat of arms. “Let the children commune with nature. It will teach them more of life’s beauty and death’s stingless touch than any God or man.”
I remembered the name Harriet Heraldsonian from a book about familiars; she’d been some kind of demonic zoologist in her day, pioneering the contemporary spell work that bound witches to their familiars across all plains. That, or she’d been the woman whose familiar turned out to be a microscopic termite. I couldn’t remember which.
“Does it look warmer over there?” Kevin asked from behind me “It better be warmer if we’re supposed to stay out here for an entire lesson…”
“Oh, stop complaining,” Jupiter said. Her sparkly purple hair was subdued in the dim grey light. “I gave you my cloak like a real gentleman and you don’t even appreciate it.”
“You gave me half your cloak. A real gentleman would’ve given me the whole thing.” Kevin tugged the cloak closer, and Jupiter jerked away, a slight frown on her petal lips.
Kevin started shivering immediately.
“Maybe that’ll teach you to appreciate your friends!” She said, sounding like an after school special.
There was a translucent dome around the class. It was subtle, invisible until you were right in front of it. But the barrier gave everyone inside a ghostly quality. Our classmates in the bubble were fairly clear, only a slight haze, but trying to focus on them through the dome was impossible. It gave me an instant headache, like if I’d just stared directly into an ultraviolet light.
“If it’s not at least twenty degrees warmer in there, I’m going back to the dorm and doing a face mask,” Kevin said firmly, sidling back up to Jupiter for warmth. “Personally, I do not remember getting a heads up on the whole freezing-our-asses-off-in-a-haunted-cemetery part of the curriculum.”
“Hush!” Jupiter told him. “That thing may not be soundproof!”
“Only one way to find out,” I said.
She raised her chin and swept the purple sparkles out of her face. “Guess I’ll be the first to take the plunge!” Jupiter surged forward. She stepped through the clear dome so easily that—if I didn’t know better—I’d have written off the barrier as a trick of the light.
Kevin and I followed.
It was like stepping through a bubble.
And it was warmer inside.
We folded ourselves into the crowded semi-oval of students, maneuvering our way toward the front. There was a pentagram drawn over the grave plot. The five elemental powers.
Stone leaned against the plot’s headstone. Even from a misty distance, his eyes were almost hypnotically blue, with little flecks of gold, like stars shining in a midday sky…
“Ahem.” I cleared my throat.
God, I hope no one noticed me staring at him, I thought. Ellenora would have a field day with that.
“Nice of you to join us, Emma,” Clark Parker said as he stood beside me. His dark hair had a slight sheen from the mist, and his clean-shaven face was covered in goose-pimples.
“Hey, I’m not the only one who’s late!” I said in self-defense, turning around to see the missing students still hadn’t found us. I thought I could see a few of them in the distance, though.
Then I realized who I was talking to and craned my neck to the side, checking for his angry other half.
“Where’s Ellenora?” I asked.
It was no secret that Ellenora didn’t like other girls talking to her boyfriend. I’d learned the hard way when Clark and I had been paired up in a potions lab. Clark was a nice guy and everything, but I wasn’t about to walk headlong into their situationship before nine o’clock in the morning.
“Feeling under the weather this morning,” Clark answered. He pumped his large dark eyebrows and rolled his eyes as if to say I know a fake excuse when I hear one.
“Don’t worry,” I said, giving him a supportive clap on the arm. “I’m sure her immune system will kick into high gear once the mall closes.”
“Touché.” He smiled and shoved his hands into his pockets. Clark wore jeans every day of the week. We were meant to be in uniform during school hours—non-negotiable. If it was in the Elmington handbook, then—by the faculty standards—it was to be observed and practiced like scripture. But no one seemed to have a problem with Clark rocking his Elmington sweater vest over a pair of Levi’s. Guess he just had a knack for getting his way. Or maybe it was the fact that he was the star of the men’s football team? Nah, that couldn’t have anything to do with it…
I nodded to Stone. “Has he said anything important yet?”
“No, he’s waiting for stragglers.” Clark pointed through the mist at a cluster of students in the distance. They darted around a row of graves, on their way to class. One tripped over a lifted root and face planted into a fresh grave plot.
Clark and I tried not to laugh, but his deep chuckle broke through the silence. I laughed too; we smiled, stifling giggles, and turned our attention resolutely back to Stone. Er, to Professor Draper.
Dammit.
“As long as we’ve got some time to kill…” Stone glanced sidelong at the sprinting straggler. “I’m supposed to remind you all about an upcoming dance…”
“The Spring Formal!” Kassandra Johnson piped up.
“Yes, that,” Stone said, his eyebrows lifted. “Consider yourselves sufficiently reminded. Does everyone have a date to the dance?” He scanned the student body. His eyes paused on me.
You probably imagined it, I thought, just as he switched his gaze to Clark.
“Well, if you don’t have a date, after today, you should be able to summon one,” Stone said with a laugh.
I laughed along with the class. The stragglers burst into the dome a second later. Stone smiled, clearly amused by their entrance.
“Now that everyone’s here, though some of you are tardy,” Stone began, “I’d like to introduce you all to a friend of mine.”
He stood, took the bell from the tomb and stepped into the middle of the pentagram.
“Blood of my blood, spirits of love, come from below, and from above. Entities loving, who wish me well, make yourselves known, when I sound the bell.”
Billowing black smoke plumed from the grave. Glowing red eyes appeared. I watched with wide eyes as the demon slowly took form, congealing into the shape of a snowy white horse.
Stone approached the horse and stroked its mane.
“This is Merlin,” he said. “He and I met when I was around your age.”
“When was that? Like, yesterday?” Trixie giggled to Allegra.
“Seriously, professor,” Allegra added, still twirling her hair and laughing like a pixie sprite. “How old are you?”
“Can’t be older than twenty-four,” Trixie said, smiling flirtatiously at him.
“I’m old enough to know that a familiar is one of the greatest assets to a practicing witch in the known universe,” Stone answered, steering the class right back on track. “But for those of you keeping score, this mortal coil’s twenty-five.” He gestured to himself.
“Good guess, Trixie!” Allegra beamed. The girls tittered about the new development as Stone approached the horse.
“Merlin is my familiar,” Stone went on. “And today, you will all be meeting yours.”
A few of us laughed excitedly. About half the students stared at Stone with confused apprehension on their faces.
“A familiar is a witch’s or a warlock’s companion,” he explained with a quick shrug. “When you summon a familiar, you enter into a sacred partnership with that creature. By reciting this spell, you pledge yourself to the demon, just as they pledge themselves to you. It’s a tie that depends on mutual respect. Its strength comes only from reciprocity—familiars live to serve their masters. But we must never forget to honor that service, always.”
Merlin whinnied, digging into the dead grass with one front hoof.
“So, pretty much the best pet you’ll ever have,” Stone added to a chorus of chuckles. “Now, then. Which one of you wants to go first?”
And then he looked directly at me.
Following Stone’s lead, more eyes looked my way. An unsettling tension took up residence in my stomach.
Uh-oh.
I recognized the feeling, my bodily precursor to public speaking. I tended to do less than awesome under pressure.
Even when the pressure’s off, I’m not exactly batting a thousand on the magic-front anyway.
“Miss Balfour,” Stone said.
Fuck.
“Yes?”
“Step forward, please.” He clapped his horse on the back and sent it off to roam in the cemetery. Merlin whinnied, pounded the ground with the same hoof, and set off. He gave one last elegant swipe of his tale before he disappeared into the mist.
“Don’t be shy,” Stone said to my obvious reluctance.
Stone backed toward the headstone and gestured for me to take his place. I stepped into the center of the pentagram and turned to face the headstone and, unwittingly, Stone’s
piercing blue eyes.
“Repeat after me,” he said.
I recited the spell. My gaze felt fused to him. Once the recitation began, I couldn’t have torn myself away. The realization left me cold, my bones humming. I felt it like the impact of a physical blow when I realized the terrifying truth... I didn’t want to look away from him.
“Come to this circle, when I sound the bell,” I said the last line, and Stone lifted the bell by its handle. Remarkably, it didn’t make a sound as he handed it to me. Our fingers brushed. His electric touch shot up my arm, leaving me tingling and breathless. But I maintained my composure.
I stared at a gold streak in his left iris to keep me centered, like a life raft in a raging storm.
I rang the bell three times.
“Nothing,” I muttered, disappointed. But not surprised. This was just another day in the life of Emma Balfour, the witch without magic.
And then a second later, something happened.
A mass of dark smoke appeared, glowing red eyes in its formless head.
Lightning struck the ground in front of me.
I yelped. Jumped back. Slammed straight into Stone. Our eyes met for a moment... Stone righted me with a hand on the small of my back. I fought to catch my breath.
Black smoke surrounded us. It was like we were standing on the world’s angriest steam grate. I lost my balance and had to lean into him for support. Stone’s hands tightened around my hips. The strong lines of his sinewy muscles were hard against my back. I struggled to find my footing in the dark fog. Keeping his strong arms around me, Stone straightened us both to full height. He released my waist. In the half second before he let go, I felt him pull me closer to him.
Or maybe I just imagined that part? Yeah, I must have imagined it… right?
Shadow Phantoms Page 11