Spellbooks and Stakings

by Lily Webb

  I fell to my knees, covering my ears, and waited for it to be over. The book flew open on its own as the scream subsided. I peeked over the table’s edge and found that the page my blood made contact with had turned jet black. What the…?

  Bright red handwriting and scribbled drawings appeared in the center of the page where the blood had fallen, looping and slashing like they were being written for the first time in front of my eyes. I couldn’t make out what anything said because the words weren’t complete, nor were any of the drawings. The handwriting also didn’t look like what I would’ve guessed to come from Seth.

  Still, I felt like I was watching Seth’s ghost re-write his final goodbyes in front of my eyes.

  But as soon as it appeared, the bright red ink vanished like it’d dried, and the black color drained away into off-white like there had never been anything written in the book in the first place. Now I understood why the book appeared to be blank all this time — it needed blood to be used, though it didn’t seem to be picky about whose blood.

  Was this what killed Seth?

  “What in Lilith’s name was that?” Mallory whispered, crawling on hands and knees toward me.

  “The book. I don’t know whose scream it was that came out of it, but I can only assume it was Seth’s,” I said. “I saw handwriting too in bright red ink that might’ve been blood, but I couldn’t make anything out.”

  “Zoe, I think it’s past time we handed this over. We’re in way over our heads,” Mallory said. I didn’t dare argue. After what I’d seen come out of the book, I didn’t want to get anywhere near it, much less touch it or try to reaccess it. Why would Nolan give anyone something like this, much less a troubled student?

  I fully intended to ask him the next time we crossed paths, but first we needed to figure out what proof, if any, was inside Seth’s book, and there was only one person in Moon Grove I trusted enough to ask for their help — and for guidance about what I’d learned about my family.

  “Let’s go,” I said as I grabbed the book with my unwounded hand, careful not to let any more of my blood touch it, and crammed it back into my bag.

  “Where?” Mallory asked.

  “Raina’s house. Bring your books,” I said and helped Mallory carry them.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mallory and I reached Moonbeam Lane in record time, both of us holding more books than it should’ve been possible to carry. As we dashed toward Raina’s house, myriad thoughts buzzed around in my head like insects — about my newfound family history, about the murders, everything. Though it felt like we were on the cusp of solving everything, at the same time I had more questions than ever. Hopefully, Raina could help us figure it all out.

  Tierney, Raina’s cat and familiar, waited for us on the front porch. As we approached, he hissed, and I could only assume that was because he didn’t recognize Mallory. I’d spent more than enough time doing magical tutoring sessions with Raina, so I knew he remembered me.

  “Settle down, Tierney, it’s just my friend and me,” I said over the stacks of books in my hands. I stepped around him and knocked on Raina’s door, trying my best not to drop anything.

  “Just a minute,” Raina called from inside, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn’t sure she’d be home, much less answer, but hearing her voice was comforting. Seconds later, the door opened, and Raina looked down at me like I was a Girl Scout forcefully trying to sell her cookies.

  “Zoe? Mallory? What are you two doing here?” Raina asked.

  “We have something we need to show you, and I have more than a few questions,” I said and bullied my way into the living room. Mallory followed though she didn’t seem comfortable about it. I dropped the stack of books on Reyna’s living room floor and slung my bag off my shoulder to pull out the black book and shard of glass.

  Mallory set her books down beside me and sat on top of them.

  “What on earth?” Raina asked.

  “Obviously, I’ve been doing some research,” Mallory said. “Thanks again for the special permission to access the library.”

  “I do hope you aren’t about to make me regret it,” Raina said as she eyed the spines of the books.

  “We’ll see. Remember how I told you I stole a book from Delia’s office the night she was killed?” I asked. Raina coughed and slammed the door shut, clearly terrified someone might’ve overheard.

  “Of course. What about it?” she asked as she joined us in the living room and sat down in the largest of the three rocking chairs near her cozy fireplace.

  “We found something disturbing about it. Very disturbing,” I said.

  “Zoe, I told you to be careful with that book, you have no idea what you’re messing with—”

  “I know, but it’s too late for that now,” I interrupted. Raina’s lips narrowed as she crossed her hands in her lap.

  “Well, out with it then,” she said.

  “It isn’t just a book. It’s way worse than that,” I said as I opened Seth’s journal to the same page I’d spilled my blood on earlier.

  “What are you doing?” Raina gasped as I reached for the shard of glass.

  “Watch,” I said. Using the piece of glass, I reopened the cut on the inside of my hand and squeezed it to make the blood drip to the page. Instantly, the book shrieked like it was the one who’d been stabbed, though it wasn’t as loud as the first time in the library. The spot on the page where the blood fell turned pitch black and spread outward until the entire sheet was like coal. Seconds later, the handwriting and blood reappeared, though much more of it was legible.

  “What is it?” Raina asked.

  I squinted as I leaned over the book — and almost screamed when I realized I was looking at a detailed hand-drawn illustration of a wooden stake.

  “It’s a stake,” I said.

  “But why would anyone draw a picture of a—”

  “Because they wanted to kill a vampire,” Raina interrupted Mallory.

  Silence fell over the room, punctuated only by the sound of the flames crackling in the fireplace.

  “You’re certain this was Seth’s?” Raina asked a few moments later.

  “Absolutely. Delia herself told me she’d confiscated it from him because it was distracting him in class,” I said. “She also told me he was furious that she’d taken it.”

  “That’s certainly a motive,” Raina said.

  “There’s more here, some sort of notes,,” I said and read over the accompanying writing as fast as I could. My heart dropped into my stomach.

  “What does it say?”

  “It’s notes on the perfect way to stab a vampire with a stake,” I breathed. Mallory clapped a hand over her mouth, and Raina gasped. I didn’t know what to think, but suddenly everything I thought I knew about the murders was wrong.

  My head spun. Had Seth killed Delia after all? And if he did, who killed Seth and why?

  “Why would anyone write something like this, and what is that book?” Raina asked, staring down at it like it was possessed. For all I knew, it was. That would explain all the screeching it did.

  “The book was made with blood magic,” Mallory said through her fingers. Raina fixed her gaze on her.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Well, because we saw the book react like this once already, and because I found some references to a shape on the back of the book in some history texts,” Mallory said. The ink on the page had already disappeared, so I closed the book and picked it up to tilt it against the light. The three droplets arranged in a triangle — which I now realized were blood — flashing in Raina’s eyes.

  “I know that symbol,” Raina said under her breath as all the color drained from her face.

  “You do?” I asked.

  “It’s unmistakable. That’s the sign of the Black Brotherhood,” Raina said.

  “That’s what we thought too,” I said.

  “I’m impressed,” Raina said, smiling despite the situation. “I knew I was right to keep a
fter you two. What did you learn about the group?”

  “You mean other than I’m probably related to the founder of a dangerous cult? Not much,” I said. Raina looked like she might faint.

  “You are?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but yeah, it looks like it,” Mallory said. “I traced Zoe’s lineage as far back as I could. There are some gaps in the tree, but I think it’s safe to say the link is solid.”

  “Fascinating,” she whispered.

  “Anyway, I don’t want to talk about that right now. You knew the book belonged to the Brotherhood just from seeing their symbol? Now I wish I’d asked you instead of going through all this trouble,” I said, and Mallory chuckled.

  “Yes, why didn’t you ask me?” Raina asked. “I told you I would help you however I could.”

  “I know, but I had no idea how dangerous it was,” I said. “I thought it was just an old book.”

  “Zoe, it’s beyond dangerous. You could’ve gotten yourself killed — or worse, bound to it,” Raina said.

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked.

  “If this book is as powerful and dark as I think it is — and if it’s true that it’s powered by blood magic — anyone who spills their blood on its pages will gradually attach themselves to it,” Raina said.

  “I don’t understand. What’s so bad about that?” I asked.

  “It isn’t bad until the person gets to a point where they can’t live without the book. It consumes them from the inside out,” Raina said.

  “Told you,” Mallory said, but I barely heard her.

  Was that what happened to Seth? Had he given so much of himself to the book that he lost himself in the process? Or was it something worse?

  Now that we’d found references to stakes and vampire killings inside Seth’s journal, I didn’t know what to believe about him. Was he the one who killed Delia? Did someone kill Seth in retaliation? If so, it could only have been Nolan.

  “I didn’t think such a thing existed. I’ve seen references to artifacts similar to this book throughout my research over the years, but they were always regarded as old folktales passed down to scare young witches and warlocks away from dabbling in dark magic,” Raina said.

  “Well, that book and its spooky powers are definitely real,” I said.

  “Yes, clearly,” Raina said.

  “What do you know about the Black Brotherhood?” I asked.

  “As much as any other magical history enthusiast,” Raina said. “They were a group of warlocks who invented the craft of blood magic and perfected its practice. But the group was disbanded centuries ago when blood magic itself was outlawed by the Council. All of their materials and teachings were destroyed as a result.”

  “Obviously not all of them,” I said, pointing at the book.

  “But that’s impossible,” Raina said. “No one book could have survived all these years without coming to the Council’s attention.”

  “Professor Grimm noticed it,” I said. “He was the one who gave the book to Seth, and I don’t think he started his warlocks’ group just to be nice. If I had to bet, I’d say he’s trying to bring back the Brotherhood and use it to boost the warlocks’ profiles.”

  “How do you know Nolan gave this book to Seth?” Raina asked.

  “Seth told me. I tracked him down at The Magic Touch about a week ago and asked him about everything, but that was before I knew what the book could do,” I said.

  “Why would Nolan give a student something as dangerous as this?” Raina asked.

  “I have no idea. That’s what we’ve been trying to figure out,” I said.

  “How curious. Let me see it,” she said, pointing at the book. Reluctantly, I passed it to her. She turned it over in her hands, examining it from every angle, but eventually sighed.

  “Nothing catches my eye from the outside,” she said. “But it’s not the outside that’s our primary concern. Lilith only knows what other things are hidden in this book.”

  “Is there any way to find out? I mean, aside from giving it more of my blood?” I asked.

  “I couldn’t possibly say. The only way for me to find out is to run some magical tests on it,” Raina said. She pulled her wand out of her robes, but I snatched the book away before she could do anything to it.

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” I said. “What if it reacts negatively? It could backfire and injure one of us.”

  “It could, but I don’t see any other way around it,” Raina said. “Besides, I should think I know what I’m doing with these sorts of things. This isn’t the first dangerous magical artifact I’ve examined, dear.”

  “I know, but what if you damage it in the process? Everything is riding on what’s inside this book, and I don’t want to risk losing any of it,” I said.

  “If my suspicions are correct, I doubt that will happen,” Raina said.

  “Give her the book, Zoe,” Mallory spoke up. For a few moments, I’d forgotten she was there. “We don’t have any other choice. Raina is the only one who can help us now.”

  She wasn’t wrong — that was why we’d come to Raina in the first place — but it didn’t make the decision any easier. Sighing, I handed the book back to Raina. She took it with a smile and promptly threw it into the fireplace.

  “Combustio!” Raina shouted as she flicked her wand. The fireplace ignited, consuming the book in a blaze, and I screamed as I dove to pull it out. Seconds before my fingers made contact, I realized that though the book was on fire, it wasn’t burning.

  “What the…?” I asked. Raina smiled at me.

  “As I thought,” she said. She waved her wand again, and the flames extinguished, but the book looked like nothing at all had happened to it. How was that possible?

  “Was there some sort of protection spell on it?” I asked as I picked up the book to look for any signs of damage. There weren’t any, or at least not any my eyes detected.

  “Possibly,” Raina said. “Or, it could be simpler than that. The book could have an anti-combustion spell cast on it. At the time this book was made, I doubt its creators had much need to protect it from anything else. Burning books was all the rage back then.”

  “Well, let’s see about that,” I said and flipped to a random page in the book — which I ripped out in one swift motion. Nothing happened, so I ripped out several more pages and let them flutter to the ground beside me like snowflakes as Mallory shrieked and tried to gather them.

  “What are you doing?!” Mallory shouted. “This is our evidence, the key to everything!”

  Defeated, she let the pages fall back to the floor. They’d no sooner landed than they began to twitch and straighten themselves. The pages flew from the floor and magically reattached themselves to the spine of the book in front of my eyes.

  If I hadn’t seen it myself, I never would’ve believed it — even after all the paranormal things I’d seen in Moon Grove.

  “Amazing,” Raina laughed, shaking her head. “Maybe you were right, Zoe. It looks like whoever created this book made sure it could never be destroyed.”

  “So then where did Professor Grimm find it and why would he give it to Seth? Seth wasn’t exactly the most responsible person,” I said. “I can’t say for sure, but I think Professor Grimm is tied to all this.”

  “That’s a serious accusation,” Raina said.

  “I’m aware. But I wouldn’t make it if I didn’t believe it,” I said. “I’m convinced Professor Grimm is trying to help blood magic and the warlocks at large make a comeback — and I think he’s willing to kill for both causes.”

  “Why?” Raina asked.

  “Nolan killed Delia for turning him into you after she learned about the blood magic he was teaching his extracurricular group of warlocks, and I think he might have killed Seth because Seth was the one who exposed the group in the first place thanks to this journal,” I said.

  Raina sat back in her chair and held a hand over her mouth.

  “I didn’t want to be
lieve it,” she said, barely audible.

  “Believe what?” I asked.

  “When Delia told me she was concerned about Professor Grimm’s group, she also told me she’d discovered some unsettling things in the process,” Raina said.

  “Like what?”

  “That though she had no direct evidence, she strongly suspected Nolan was teaching his warlocks magic that was questionable at best and illegal at worst,” Raina said. “Though Delia never specifically said blood magic, that was immediately where my mind went. I refused to believe it, so I pushed it out of my mind. Now I wish I hadn’t.”

  “You know your history. Where do you think Nolan could have gotten a book like this?” I asked.

  “I’m sorry, I have no idea,” Raina said. “Like I said, I wasn’t aware such a thing existed. For as long as I can remember, artifacts like these have been treated as nothing more than rumors.”

  “Could this book have killed Seth on its own?” I asked.

  “Quite possibly. If he gave too much of himself to it, it could have drained the life from him. But without examining the book further, I can’t say for certain.”

  “Well, it looks like I know who to talk to next,” I said.

  “Zoe, you can’t. What if Nolan has caught on to you by now?” Mallory asked.

  “It’s a risk I’ll have to take. I’ve already talked to him once, and I came out okay. I guess I’ll just have to take my chances,” I said.

  “What about that shard of glass? Where did you find that anyway?” Mallory asked.

  “At Nolan’s house the last time I spoke to him,” I said. Raina and Mallory both looked like they might faint.

  “Why would there be a bloodied shard of glass on Nolan’s property?” Raina asked.

  “I think we know why now. I can’t say exactly what he was using it for, but if it wasn’t blood magic, then my name isn’t Zoe Clarke,” I said.

  “I know you don’t want to involve them, but now might be the right time to ask the police for help,” Raina said.

  “Sure. Do what you have to, I’ll do the same,” I said and jumped off the floor with Seth’s journal in hand.