The Eighth Mage

by Tamara Geraeds

  Soon, the ground between the dry plants starts to move. Small zombie animals crawl out of the earth and make their way to the back of the monastery.

  I can’t help but let out a relieved sigh. Jeep’s powers are at full strength again.

  Taylar moves to the front door, but I stop him. “Not yet.”

  Sounds start to trickle in from the back of the building. An exclamation of surprise followed by barked orders, doors that fly open, footsteps behind the closed front door.

  Taylar sends me a questioning look, and I nod.

  Carefully, he opens one of the high front doors and peers inside. Then he slips through the gap. The others follow quickly, and I take one last look around before closing the door behind us.

  It sounds like our distraction worked beautifully. There’s a lot of commotion at the back of the building, and everyone inside seems to be drawn to it. The hallway is empty, and we tiptoe to the door that Dylan was screaming behind in my premonition. To make sure this doesn’t come true, Dylan will stay here with me and Charlie to prevent anyone from sneaking up on the others, who will go get the nun.

  I’m here to kick the asses of the tornado demons that will show up soon, or so I think. Then we’ll find out if Dylan’s theory about cooling down the lower part will work.

  “Is this it?” Vicky whispers, pointing at the door.

  I take in the decorations on it and nod.

  She beckons D’Maeo, Gisella and Taylar and wraps her hand around the door handle. It squeaks a little, and we all freeze. I concentrate on ice and focus it on the floor, where snow flowers appear.

  Charlie grabs my shoulder. “Not yet. Try to stay calm.”

  I take a couple of deep breaths and nod at him. I guess my confidence only needs the squeak of a door to evaporate.

  But no one comes running to check out the sound. Jeep’s skeletons must make enough noise to hide our presence.

  Vicky opens the door a crack and peers through. She holds up two fingers to us, then goes inside with her sword drawn. D’Maeo, Gisella and Taylar follow close behind. The sound of metal on metal echoes through the hallway before the door closes, and Dylan, Charlie and I take our places next to each other to defend the door and keep our escape route open.

  I can hear the whistling of wind before the first demon rounds the corner.

  Charlie nudges me. “This would be a great time to focus on ice again.”

  My gaze moves to the floor, and I freeze it bit by bit. The cold moves further away from us as I envision cold sweeping over the lower part of the demon.

  “Not too cold,” Dylan warns me. “The trick is to let the funnels of the demons take on the same temperature as the upper part.”

  Sure, it sounds so simple when he says it, but try realizing it!

  “You can do it, Dante. I know you can,” Charlie says calmly.

  Blobs of grease soar through the air as soon as the first arm becomes visible.

  I picture cold air instead of ice crawling up the funnel that forms the lower part of the demon. It starts to turn slower and looks down in surprise.

  “Yes!” Charlie yells. “Keep going!”

  “A little colder,” Dylan advises, and I turn down the temperature a bit more.

  The tornado demon stops turning, lets out a fearful moan, and goes up in black smoke.

  Dylan jumps up and down in a solid imitation of Kessley when she’s excited. “You did it!”

  “There are more of them,” Charlie warns, throwing more grease away from him.

  In a short moment of silence, I can hear yelling and groaning behind the door to our right. I hope our friends and the soul are safe.

  Charlie gives me a quick nudge. “Focus, Dante!”

  I shake my head and drown out the sounds coming from my right. “Yes, I’m focused!”

  A second tornado demon has stepped out. This time, it doesn’t take me long to envision his lower body getting colder and colder. Gradually, his movements come to a halt, and he too goes up in smoke.

  “This is going better than I expected,” Dylan says.

  Of course, there’s no better way to jinx something. On cue, a demon, bigger than the ones we’ve seen so far, whirls around the corner.

  “The head demon,” Charlie whispers. He showers it with grease, but the monster evades all of it easily, changing shape several times in seconds.

  I concentrate on cooling its funnel, but it’s not working. It isn’t slowing down. In fact, it’s speeding up. The howling from the wind is so loud now that I feel the urge to cover my ears.

  Don’t let it distract you. No matter how big it is, you can defeat it by cooling the lower air down.

  “Can you build a bigger ball?” I ask Charlie.

  He nods without answering.

  My eyes zoom in on the funnel of the demon, and I will it to get colder. I envision the cold spreading quickly.

  Still, nothing happens.

  Maybe this demon is colder than the others.

  I try ice. It crackles around the vortex as the monster slides closer to us. Finally, it turns a bit slower, and I double my efforts.

  But then the demon raises its arms and throws them forward.

  We’re hit by a blast of wind and knocked over. I fly back so far that I slam against the front doors. Charlie slams into them next to me, and Dylan goes through the wood.

  The demon roars triumphantly. Behind it, a nun appears.

  We’re running out of time. We need to take it out before all of the nuns come running back inside.

  Dylan seems to have come to the same conclusion. He dives back into the hallway and sprints past us. “I’ll distract it!”

  “What? No!” I yell, but he’s already halfway there.

  He performs a jump that an acrobat would be proud of, with his feet forward to kick the demon in the stomach.

  With a roar, it brings its arms forward to squash the young mage. I cover my eyes. I can’t bear to watch this.

  Charlie yanks at my arm. “Cool it while it’s distracted!”

  I lower my hands. “Right.”

  When I aim the ice at the demon again, I see that Dylan is hanging on to its neck. How he managed to get there, I have no idea, but it gives my hopes a boost.

  Instead of building up the cold slowly, I send out a blast of ice myself. Charlie picks up the big ball of gel that he created and throws it when the demon’s whirling slows down a bit.

  The nun behind the monster doesn’t lift a finger when the demon stumbles. What is she waiting for?

  I ignore her as much as I can and bring the temperature of the ice down some more.

  The demon bucks and hisses in an attempt to get rid of the ice as well as Dylan, who is hammering its head with his fists non-stop. But the young ghost is clinging on tight with his legs, and I’m still sending the ice up, making the monster lose more and more speed. He’s barely twisting at all anymore.

  As it comes to a halt, Dylan raises his hands above his head and brings them down with force.

  In a last near-death twitch, the demon rises to its full height, flattening Dylan against the ceiling. Then the monster falls apart, and the mage lands face first on the floor.

  Charlie and I immediately bombard the waiting nun with balls of ice and grease, drawing nearer to help our friend up at the same time.

  Dylan is unconscious, so we both grab an arm and start dragging him back with us.

  After a couple of steps, he comes to, and I ask him if he’s okay.

  “Fine. Just some old-fashioned bad luck. Wrong place, wrong time.”

  “That was pretty brave and pretty stupid,” I say. “But I think you saved our asses with it.”

  “Really?”

  I don’t get the chance to answer him, because suddenly, the spot where he hit the ceiling cracks, and debris rains down. The nun finally wakes from her almost hypnotized state of staring at us.

  CHAPTER 17

  Th
e nun blinks, and a flicker of worry crosses her face.

  “I think you were in the exact right spot, Dylan, at the exact right time,” I whisper to our new friend.

  Charlie nods. “Something important is hidden there. We should find out what it is.”

  I hold out my arm, in case he means to check it out this instant. “We can’t. The soul is what we’re here for. She’s our most important mission.”

  “But if we can, we should free these nuns,” he insists.

  I bite my lip. He’s right. We can’t leave them possessed like this, for their sakes and for the sake of everyone around them. Who knows what they will do to the people of this town if we leave them here.

  “As soon as the soul is safe, we’ll come back to kill the demons that possess these nuns, and we’ll check out that ceiling.” I gesture for Charlie to move toward the decorated door. I wonder what’s taking our friends so long. But going inside will leave the hallway unprotected, so we have no other choice but to wait here, fight off the sisters, and hope that our friends will come out soon.

  Another nun rounds the corner and comes to a halt beside the first. She whispers something in her ear, and a grin appears on both faces simultaneously, sending chills down my spine. Still, they don’t move; they just stand there, staring at us with eyes that glow red.

  I knock on the door next to me. “Come on, hurry up,” I mumble.

  The calmness of the two nuns is making me nervous. They’re not worried about losing the soul at all. Does that mean that our friends behind the door have already lost their battle? Are they being trapped or killed as we wait for them to come out?

  “We should go check it out,” I say softly to Charlie.

  My best friend shakes his head. “No, it’s a trick. They want us to go inside, and as soon as we do, they’ll block all the exits.”

  I lower my hand, which was moving to the door handle already. “What’s taking them so long?”

  “You go check it out, Dante,” a voice says from behind me. When I look over my shoulder, Jeep, Maël and Kessley step through the front doors. Jeep opens one of them to let a bunch of zombies in, which he directs into a line between us and the two sisters. “Go on, Dante, we’ll keep them at bay.”

  “Why aren’t you out back?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “We could only fool them for so long. As soon as a couple of them went back inside, we decided to join you here. After all, we’re stronger together, don’t you think?”

  I grit my teeth when a third nun appears. “Okay. I’ll go inside to see what’s going on. I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

  Kessley splits herself in two. “Don’t worry, we’ve got this.”

  After a curt nod at the others, I tentatively push open the door. It’s quiet in the room that lies behind it, and only a weak light comes from about six paces away.

  I gather up all of my courage and step inside, closing the door behind me. “Vicky?” I whisper.

  No answer.

  I conjure a lightning ball in my hand and prepare to throw it at the first thing that jumps me, but nothing happens. With a quick flip of my hand, I send the lightning to the ceiling. When it lights up the whole room, I can see that there’s no one here. There is, however, a door next to the tiny light in the corner. I walk over to it and put my ear against the wood. There are voices behind it, urgent, but not panicked. No sounds of a fight.

  With a simple hand gesture, I extinguish the lightning. I grab the handle and pull the door open inch by inch. It doesn’t make a sound, but nevertheless, I find myself staring at the sharp tip of a blade.

  “Don’t move,” Gisella says.

  “It’s me,” I squeak.

  The blade changes into a hand. “Dante? Why are you here? Is everyone okay?”

  She opens the door further, and I rub the spot between my eyes where her blade touched my skin. “Everyone is fine. For now. I came to see what’s taking you guys so long. The nuns are gathering in the hallway. We need to get out of here.”

  When Gisella steps aside, I get a full view of the situation. The soul we need to save, the nun that bakes croissants so it seems, is sitting with her back against the wall of the room. It’s a storage room, filled with carton boxes. D’Maeo and Taylar are standing on each side of her, and Vicky has crouched down in front of the nun. She’s talking to her softly. The nun herself is in tears. But at least she’s alive and all of my friends are okay.

  I turn back to Gisella. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “The possessed nuns have gotten to her. They made her lust for a man, apparently. I’m not sure how they managed it. But now, she says she needs to be punished for this sin.”

  “You’re kidding,” I say.

  She gives me a stern look and gestures at the weeping nun.

  “You’re not kidding,” I conclude.

  “I wish I was. She refuses to come with us.”

  I rub the stubble on my chin that I forgot to shave off. “Did you tell her why we’re here?”

  “Of course.”

  I glance back at the closed door. The pressure of getting out of here feels like a real weight on my shoulders. I roll them back and forth a couple of times, trying to come up with a solution. Then my gaze falls upon Vicky again.

  “Babe, did you try your powers on her yet?” I ask.

  She nods without turning around. “They blocked them somehow. I can’t influence her.”

  I curse under my breath, and the nun looks up. Anger flashes across her face, and she makes the sign of a cross.

  “Sorry,” I say, “but we really need to get you out of here. If we don’t, the Devil will win. Do you understand?”

  “I do, but I need to punish myself for my sin.”

  “Okay, but can you do that later? Time is running out for all of us here.”

  She pushes herself to her feet abruptly and takes a thick rope from her pocket. “I can’t come with you. I need to die!” she screams. “I felt lust!”

  My heart pounds loudly at the sight of the rope. I remember the noose on the Card of Death and realize I need to stay calm. “That wasn’t your fault,” I explain. “You were manipulated. Magic was used to influence your feelings.”

  She shakes her head fervently. “It doesn’t matter. I was susceptible to it. I need to be punished.”

  I hold up my hand when she moves the rope up to her neck. “Wait. Please. There are other ways to punish yourself. If you die, you will only bring Satan closer to his plans. Is that what you want? Is that what God would want?”

  Finally, a glimpse of hesitation crosses her face.

  Carefully, I take a step forward and place my hand on the rope. “Besides, what kind of people would we be if we stood by while you killed yourself?”

  She stares at me for a moment, and I’m convinced that she’ll come with us. But then she jerks the rope back and pushes me away. “You would be good people, for letting me punish myself for my sin.”

  I purse my lips. Why isn’t she cooperating? Why can’t she see that her life is important?

  Gisella pushes me aside. She throws down her hands, that change into blades. She presses the sharp tips against the nun’s neck. “You’re coming with us now, or else…” she hisses.

  The nun doesn’t even blink. “Or else what? You’ll kill me? Go ahead, I deserve it.”

  Gisella’s blades change back into hands, and she steps back. Her jaws are set tight. “Fine. Then I’ll let the shadows carry you away from here.”

  She stretches her arms sideways and calls the shadows to her. They circle above us and block the light from the lamp on the ceiling. They whirl around Taylar and darken his face so much that my heart almost stops for a second. Is he turning evil again? I haven’t seen any signs of evil in him for a while, so I pushed my concerns to a corner of my mind. Was I wrong to do that? Should I ask Dylan to cure him? If he even can… what if this is not the result of a curse or spell?

  The shadows
wrap around his hand, but he shakes them off, and they continue their path to the nun. The darkness that lingers in his eyes vanishes when he blinks several times. I breathe out slowly.

  “Wait,” Vicky suddenly says.

  The shadows come to a halt.

  “I was wondering…” Vicky tilts her head in thought. “Isn’t suicide also a sin?”

  The nun’s eyes grow wide. Her lips move, but no sound comes out.

  Vicky holds out her hand. “Please come with us. God will be grateful if you help us in our battle against the Devil. You can always punish yourself after that.”

  With clenched teeth, she places the rope on the ground and takes Vicky’s hand. “Okay, I will come with you.”

  My fingers unclench, and I flex them several times. I hadn’t even noticed my hands balling into fists.

  Taylar moves to the door and opens it slowly, holding his shield high to protect his face. My worries about him evaporate again. Maybe I’m imagining things. No one else seems to think anything is wrong.

  “The coast is clear,” he says, “but there’s a lot of noise coming from the hallway.”

  I run over to him and conjure a lightning ball. “Let’s go then. This has taken way too long already.”

  Taylar and I leave the room first, and the others escort the nun to make sure she doesn’t go anywhere and that she’s safe from any surprise attacks.

  “D’Maeo and Gisella, can you protect her? The rest of us will join the fight.”

  They all nod. At the door to the hallway, I count down from three. On zero, I pull the door open as wide as it will go, and we spill out of the room.

  The noise in the hallway is deafening. There’s shouting and huffing plus the sound of bones hitting the walls and ground as Jeep’s skeletons attack the two lines of nuns that have formed. There are nine of them, all dressed in the black robes I saw in my premonition, and with red flaring eyes. The five in front twist and bend to avoid the incoming skeletons and grease bombs. They keep the other four sisters behind them safe from the attacks. Every couple of seconds, one or two of them move in slow motion, but it’s clear that Maël isn’t able to freeze them in time completely. That gives the four nuns in the back line the opportunity to hit our friends with some sort of invisible force by simply moving their hands.