by Holly Hook
Table of Contents
Title Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
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DEATH Magic
Abnormals Underground Book 3
By
Holly Hook
Copyright 2017 Holly Hook
Chapter One
Xavier and I weren't having a good day. First, we were stuck below some ancient ruins where the most powerful supernatural beings in the world held a party every one hundred years. Second, I had just found out I was descended from an equally old dragon emperor, which explained why my enemies burned from the inside out when I stabbed them. And third, we would both die unless we resurrected two of our biggest enemies before we left, who may or may not want to kill us.
Well, I guess that we weren't actually trapped. The exit was down the dark tunnel and up a ladder, but Allunna the dead demon had promised that we would both perish unless we brought her back to life before leaving. It wasn't like Xavier and I had agreed to this lightly. She was the only one who could tell us where the Dark Council met, after all, and we had to come out here to Turkey to find where Thoreau had taken Leon's body. If we hadn't made this horrible deal with the now-wraith, Thoreau would have extracted the magic from the old War Mage's body and used it to kill the Abnormals back in Cumberland.
Xavier paced around the room. We had just finished looking around the underground complex, which was a large cave dome in the middle and a bunch of dark, ancient tunnels branching off from it. He walked over the etched circle with the star in the middle of the floor. "There's not as much here as I thought there was. I guess the Dark Council doesn't maintain it too well since they meet here only once every hundred years."
"Well, they're not going to have any home theaters or restaurants down here," I said. The dread feeling that this place gave off was as bad as ever. I eyed the cell where the tourists had been trapped. "They must be into a bunch of winding tunnels. At least we know this place has multiple exits." Most of the tunnels led to ancient stone ladders, so at least I knew how Gaozu the dragon had escaped before the blast of War Magic blazed through this place. He hadn't showed any signs of coming back. I would smell him if he returned, though. The burning oil stench was unmistakable.
Xavier stopped. He was standing over the star in the middle of the circle, where the point met the inner border. "I hope those captured tourists got out of here okay. We can't check on them until we do what we have to do."
I eyed the magic circle. The torches around it were going dim, making the light flicker and the black etches look like moving snakes again. It was creepy, to say the least. "This is a pentagram," I said.
"I know what it is," Xavier said. "I'm a Mage. We War Mages don't deal with ritual magic often, but we learn what the basic symbols are and we learn a little about other kinds of magic. These symbols can be either good or bad, depending on how they're used. Oh. I see what you're saying."
"I'm supposed to be the 'Dark Pentagram'," I said. "That's what Thoreau said. Do you think this symbol has something to do with it?"
"Thoreau's crispy," Xavier said. "Even I can smell him from here. He's got to be lying in the tunnel we came in through. He couldn't get out of here before all that magic exploded."
My nose had gone somewhat numb to the burnt sewage smell, but now that I was paying attention, it returned. Instead, I focused on the large circle on the floor. There were five symbols, one in each section of the star. I caught a jagged lightning bolt--the same symbol Thoreau had on his head before his death. There were two more symbols I couldn't make out since they looked like jumbles, but another looked like a scythe and the next one reminded me of a single flame, not unlike the mark Allunna had put on my arm to make sure we went through our part of the bargain. I was supposed to have pieces of three of the Dark Council members, or the three who had been absent, anyway. Did that mean I was distantly descended from them, like I was supposed to be from Gaozu? Thoreau told me I had more rare genes just waiting to be woken up. And once that happened, I would be the key to ending the world.
I really, really didn't want to be here anymore.
"Well, if we need all five members of the Dark Council to do this rite," I said, "I supposedly carry genes from four of them. All we have to do is drag Thoreau's body into the circle or onto his symbol here and do the rite to bring Leon back, and then Allunna." I sighed. "I wished bringing one back didn't automatically bring the other back to life."
"Well, Leon and Allunna are battle partners," Xavier said. "If one dies, so does the other. And if one lives, so must the other. I'm assuming it works that way. Maybe Allunna will come back to life somewhere else and we'll only have to deal with my grandfather."
"I hope," I said. I really didn't want to fight the two of them at the same time. Now that Thoreau was dead, the people left Allunna would want revenge on would be the two of us, Xavier especially. "Let's get this done. What do we have to do again? Like I said, I really hate this place. I can't feel the dread like I could before, but I think I've just gone numb to it."
"So have I," Xavier said. He reached into his pocket and drew out the clump of white hair he had pulled from his grandfather's head while I was distracting Gaozu the dragon. He tossed it down in the circle. "I think I remember the words I need to chant. We need my blood. Is there a dagger around here?"
Panic rose up inside of me. I was sated from the bus driver--his blood was still providing me plenty of energy--but my stomach rumbled a bit again as soon as Xavier mentioned his own blood. Why wouldn't this stop? I had barely stopped myself from biting him when his shoulder was bleeding all over the place and now I was about to be tempted again. I was supposed to bite Xavier to make both of us more powerful, but that would only take me one step closer to becoming the being that would help merge Earth with the Infernal Dimension.
But Thoreau was gone...
It couldn't be now or ever, just in case someone else in the Dark Council wanted to use me. Thoreau had almost used me to accomplish a different rite that had nothing to do with merging the worlds. We weren't out of danger yet. I wasn't going to become a hazard to the people around me. I had already done that enough. I glanced over to where the body was on the floor before the War Magic explosion destroyed it along with all the blood I had spilled. Sure, the man had deserved it for luring tourists down here to their demise, but I had still killed. He was the first Normal life I had taken.
I was officially a killer, just like the vampire who had bitten me fourteen years ago had been.
"Alyssa," Xavier said, jarring me out of my trance.
"Yeah?" I asked. I tingled whenever I looked at him and his kiss came back to mind. If I focused, I could still feel the tingle of his lips on mine.
"What happened before we went into battle, well..."
A new panic exploded inside of me. "Don't tell me it was fake," I said, "or that it was something that sounded good because we were both about to die. If you say that, Xavier, I'm going to kill you myself. Well, not really, but you know what I mean."
He stood there and stared at me, paling in the torch light. "I was going to say that I'm not sure about it," he said. "I mean, we're battle partners, but if we get really involved with each other, it's going to complicate things."
"I thought battle partners usually did that?"
I asked. Xavier was back to sending me all these conflicting signals again and it made me want to storm out of the chamber and leave him down here to finish the rite himself. He still couldn't decide if he liked me or not.
"They do, but there's so much more to this," Xavier said. "We shouldn't talk about this now. We have to get this rite going. Alyssa, can you find that scroll in the library? You can see way better than I can."
I turned my back on Xavier. Of course I shouldn't have expected some fairy tale relationship between us after just one kiss, and one right before battle. Xavier hadn't expected to survive to deal with the aftermath of it, after all. Now he was dealing. I wished he hadn't even done it in the first place.
The library was a mess from the blast, even though none of the books were burned. I grabbed book after book, careful this time not to let any more ancient covers crumble in my hands, and set them on the shelf. Out in the main chamber, Xavier hissed with pain as a knife slid across his skin. I stopped, but then I realized what he was doing. He was slicing his palm and spilling some of his blood while I was in here. That was so I wouldn't be tempted by it like I had been in the past. Xavier, who had once begged me to bite him, was reconsidering after he had seen what I'd done to the bus driver on the surface, the driver who still might be lying out there, crying out in pain.
I watched for a second as he held his palm out over the circle, allowing one of the ingredients of the rite to spill. I turned away as his wood smoke smell intensified, making my stomach rumble. I knew what I wanted and it was still forbidden. There were too many things that were still dangerous.
And besides, we were in for another potential battle. Draining Xavier of any energy was a bad, bad thing right now.
"Have you found the scroll?" Xavier asked.
"I'm getting there," I said, focusing on the paper smell instead. At last, I found the rumpled scroll resting underneath a couple of very large books that had flown to the floor. I lifted it up as a corner crumbled and turned to dust. "I have to be careful, though. Bear with me."
My life was in this paper and so was Xavier's. My fire mark on my wrist burned, warning me to go through with the rite. I muttered that I was getting to it, that I wouldn't have to die right now. Xavier and I were keeping our promise. I walked back out into the main chamber and handed him the scroll.
Xavier had wrapped his palm up tight in a piece of his T-shirt, which was ripped at the sleeve. I would have to give him his leather coat back once we were done with this. And his hat, too. He had let me borrow them to keep the sun off me yesterday and now a big part of me no longer wanted to wear his clothes.
"That's it," he said, avoiding my gaze and turning away. "These are the words. I'm glad that part didn't get ripped. I'm amazed the rite is so easy. I was expecting that we'd have to do something horrible like human sacrifice."
"Well, I'm rare," I said, waiting and tense. I'd focus on the coming battle, not Xavier. I wished he hadn't kissed me. "So I guess it's a pretty difficult rite. That's why Allunna wanted us to go through with it. She knew we were the ones who could do it."
"We're still missing Thoreau's part in this," Xavier said. "Let's just hope this rite doesn't bring him back as well."
"It shouldn't. His blood isn't in here."
Xavier and I shot each other disgusted glances. He placed the paper down inside the circle, letting it rest next to a shining, tiny puddle of his blood and the tuft of Leon's white hair.
We entered the tunnel and the burnt sewage smell got so bad I gagged. Xavier shot me a sympathetic glance and a questioning one. My gray vision snapped into being and I looked down the tunnel, dreading what I would see.
It was as bad as I thought. Halfway to the first curve, Thoreau's dark form lay there, barely recognizable. His suit was still intact along with his sunglasses, but all the organic parts of him...yikes. He looked more like a burned blob in the vague form of a horned demon than anything else. Crusty things that might be burned wings clung to his suit, wrapping him in a cocoon of fried demon. He had died in his true form. Xavier was right that War Magic was one of the very few things that could slay demons.
And Leon's body had contained a lot of it.
"I don't want to do this," I said.
Xavier coughed. "Neither do I. I can even smell this. I'm glad I don't have the vision that you do. I wouldn't even want to touch Thoreau if he was alive.”
I got a great idea right then. "We don't have to touch him. We can use something to drag him to the circle like a makeshift gurney."
"But what are we going to use for that?"
"Easy," I said, taking off Xavier's jacket.
He must have heard the leather squeaking because his mouth opened in horror. "Alyssa!"
"Well, we need something," I said. "If we don't use your jacket, we carry Thoreau with our bare hands." A horrible, vindictive part of me wanted to do this, but even without that it was the only good choice. I ran, reached the disgusting remains, and laid his jacket down. I kicked the suited blob, rolling it onto the jacket while Xavier listened in horror back towards the main chamber.
"That's my trademark!" Xavier shouted.
I wanted to say something about him messing with my feelings so badly but I put that aside. Now wasn't the time for this. "I'll help you pick out a new coat," I said. "Come down, grab one end and let's get this rite done. We only have to bring Allunna and Leon back to life. We don't have to stick with them. There was nothing else in the deal. Heck, we can leave as soon as Leon's coming back to life, so he wakes up alone in this horrible place with this lying next to him."
Xavier grinned. "I like that idea."
We used the coat to drag the burnt blob all the way back to the main chamber. It was a longer walk than I'd liked and the stench made me want to puke. It was like a burning chemical factory. At last, we dumped the grossness into the magic circle and even as we did, the power in the room seemed to intensify. The air got thicker, heavier, and more tingly as its magic prepared to work.
I set Xavier's coat down on the floor.
Xavier stood there, staring at his leather coat with a look of real mourning on his face.
“First you and Janine make me cut my hair,” he said, “and now this.”
"I advise you to never wear that again," I said. With my superior vision, I could see that things had rubbed off on the coat that a human probably couldn't. Even Thoreau's still-intact suit hadn't kept it off.
He gripped his coat and tossed it to the side. "We'll have a moment of silence for it later," he said, picking up the scroll. "Alyssa, you stand inside the circle with everything. It won't work without you."
I had no choice but to enter. I felt stupid, just standing there while Xavier raised the scroll to read it in the dim torch light.
Xavier trembled as he muttered some words, the same few words over and over for so long that I was sure I had memorized them. The air in the room got thicker and thicker as the dark lines that made up the magic circle on the floor began to glow. My skin tingled. The glow from the circle wasn't really a glow. It was more as if the blackness that made up the patterns and etches was more present, like little openings into a void. I felt like we were standing on a thin stone crust and there was nothing below us. I fought the urge to jump out of the circle. This was some kind of sinister magic, indeed.
"Something's happening," I said, eyeing the floor.
Xavier said nothing. The glow shifted to something fiery, like the dragon piece inside of me. Another tingle raced through my body. Then it shifted to green, then magenta, then dark blue and at last, a bloody red. The colors pulsed faster and faster along the lines of the circle while Xavier read. I felt like waves of magic were pulsing through me, sucking my strength away. I was lending my life force to this rite. I wanted to scream as the feeling intensified and my knees wobbled. I closed my eyes and indistinct, leering faces danced in my vision, but none of them remained long enough for me to make them out. My stomach heaved and I was about to throw up when it all stoppe
d and an utter silence fell over the chamber.
"Alyssa," Xavier said with an undertone of terror.
I opened my eyes. The air of the room was clear now, clean even of the dread that had filled the place since Xavier and I arrived. It felt like every ounce of magic had been drained from this place and would stay gone for a while. I remained standing inside the circle, which had returned to its normal black etched in stone.
Thoreau's burned form was smoking. That was new. Leon's hair and Xavier's blood were doing the same next to him. Xavier and I watched, standing on opposite sides of the circle, while I trembled with weakness that gripped me. I felt hollow, like a shell that was standing there. If I took a step, I might fall.
Leon's hair turned black, like ash, and then melted.
"What?" I asked.
"I don't know how this works, but something's happening."
The tiny black puddle shifted and merged with Xavier's now-drying blood on the floor. Both turned inky and spread out, filling the etches of the magic circle and racing through the grooves like a dark flood filling every canal of a city. I watched in horror as the liquid spread and spread, far beyond what it should have. It was expanding to fill every crevice of the magic circle. It almost looked like inky demon blood, like the portals that turned dark when they were ready for use. Some of it touched Thoreau's form, which began to smoke even more.
"Get out," I said, finding the strength to back away. I managed it, stepping out of the circle.
I realized that I might have screwed things up too late, but apparently the rite was already done because the liquid kept spreading until it had, at last, filled every groove and symbol of the circle with its shining darkness.
"So Leon is liquid darkness," Xavier said, backing out as well.
I didn't get the chance to respond. The ink inside the circle border started to rise with a disgusting sucking sound, forming a circular wall that narrowly missed Xavier as it climbed, curved, and formed into a dark, shining dome that was somehow terrifying to look at. It made a horrible squick sound as it met at the top, closing the circle inside. More of those awful sounds followed from inside the circle like something was forming inside, something from that gross fluid.