“We have them,” Christian said, pointing to the two scroll-tubes tucked into in his belt. “The warlock teleported away before we could stop him. I don’t think he gives a shit about damaging the dimensional barriers. ”
Cai cursed under his breath as he realized that both scrolls were out of their ward-protected boxes. “How did he bring down the wards on the box so fast?” he asked dejectedly.
“You should go downstairs and see,” Callum answered, in a tone that carried both anger and revulsion.
“It's the third door on the left.”
“The newbie should go too,” Christian insisted. “It will be part of her education as a Blessed.”
Evelyn stood from where she had been kneeling beside Josh and joined Cai and Cadell as they descended to the basement. They entered the room that Callum had indicated and were stunned into silence. It was obviously a ritual chamber, its walls covered with glyphs carved into it bare stone walls. A bloodstained stone alter was at its center with a huge coal-burning brazier hanging above it and the nude body of a small boy, no older than ten, lying upon it. His eyes were wide open and the body was covered by arcane symbols cut into his skin. The bodies of six other children were chained to the room’s walls. Each had a pool of blood beneath him and was naked. All of the bodies had dozens of magical symbols carved into their flesh. Their eyes were open and terror-filled, even in death. The floor beneath them was soaked with sticky, slowly-drying blood.
“None of them can be more than ten years old,” Evelyn said, closing one corpse’s open eyes with a trembling hand. “Why would they do this?”
Cadell had found the key to unlock the chains and he and Cai were lowering the bodies gently to the floor.
“When someone dies, there’s a powerful release of mystical energy. Younger people give off more power than older ones when they die. The warlock used the power their deaths released to break down the wards on the boxes. The symbols carved into their skin helped channel their energy into him.”
Evelyn took a deep, resolve-gathering breath. “But we have the scrolls,” she said. “That means they won’t be able to find the ring, right?”
“I hope so,” Cai replied. “But he may have already seen what see what he needed to see, and most warlocks have total recall, like Blessed scribes. He could have taken a photo with his cell-phone, for all we know. We don’t know how long he had the box open.”
“Not long,’ Cadell said. “Or he and Blackwell wouldn’t have been here when we arrived. They’d have already gone after the ring.” Cadell tilted his head towards the dead children. “Besides, these kids haven’t been dead very long and we wounded Blackwell pretty badly. We may still have some time, God willing.”
“Lord and Angel hear your prayer, little brother,”
Cai said.
Cai took a radio from his pocket. “Clive, is there any activity from the police or the alarm company?” he asked.
“No,” Clive’s voice replied via the radio.
“You’re sure?” Cai pressed, “we’ve had some gunfire in here.”
“There’s been no cellular activity from the house and no relevant activity on the police or EMT radio channels,” Clive confirmed. “That’s a big, well-built house. I doubt anyone outside could have heard the gunshots. I didn’t.”
“I doubt that Blackwell would ever want the cops to come here.” Cadell advised. “The guards probably had orders not to call them.”
“Come in here and make sure the video from the door cameras is wiped, just in case,” Cai told Clive. He turned to Evelyn. “Will you be able to read those scrolls?” he asked her.
“I won’t know until I look at them,” she replied, still looking at the dead children. “I’ll need Aunt Eve’s help for sure, though.”
She turned away from the corpses, her eyes alive with rage. “I didn’t really get it before now,” she said. “I mean, I got that demons are evil, that they’re bad. But this…” She looked back the bodies. “This is really evil.
You can feel it on your skin, even with Blackwell and his warlock gone.”
Cadell put an arm around her shoulders. “I hate to say it, but this isn’t the worse we’ve seen,” he told her, looking at his brother. He squeezed her shoulders gently.
“It’s not the worst you’re going to see, either.”
Evelyn nodded. “You’ve lived with this kind thing all your lives,” she said.
“From the moment we were born,” Cai said.
“How do you do it and stay sane?” she asked, her eyes drawn back to the slain children.
Cadell took both her hands in his. “Family,” he told her.
Callum was lifting Josh into his arms as Cadell, Evelyn and Cai returned to the foyer. Helen was tending to the guard Cadell had shot. “We’ve got to get Josh home now,”
Callum said, moving toward the house’s rear door, passing Clive as he left. “I’ll go to the security room and degauss the computer drives,” Clive said, moving toward the east hallway.
Cai nodded “Go with him, Colm,” he ordered.
“Christian, stay with Helen while she cleanses the house. Helen, you’ll want to take special care in the basement; it got really bad down there. Did you wipe the guards’ memories?” he asked.
Helen nodded. “Yes. They won’t remember what’s happened to them for the last day or so. I’ve stabilized the one Cadell shot. He’ll be all right, but he’ll need more care.”
“We’ll call an ambulance for him after we leave,”
Cai said. He turned to Cadell and Evelyn. “You two take the scrolls and get back to the house with Callum. Evelyn, you and Eve get to work on them as soon as you can. If we do have time to beat Blackwell to the ring, it isn’t much.
We’ll meet you at home when we’re done cleaning up here.” Cadell nodded and he and Evelyn moved toward the door.
“What about those kids?” Evelyn asked. “Shouldn’t someone find out who they were and tell their families?”
“What would we tell them?” Cadell replied as they walked. “That their children were sacrificed by a warlock to unlock a demon-holding prison for a demon who masquerades as one of the wealthiest humans in Massachusetts?”
Evelyn nodded. “So even if they believed you, telling them would do more harm than good. Not only would they have lost their children, they’d have to live in terror the rest of their lives, knowing that monsters are real and live their neighborhoods.”
“Sometimes keeping our secrets is harder than fighting demons,” Cadell said as they reached Callum and the SUV. “There have been a lot of times where I wanted to scream about the Grigori and Nephilim at the top of my lungs. I wanted to warn all the clueless humans about the danger they were in. Warn them that they were being manipulated by demons on a daily basis. But what if I did? Even if they believed me, what would they be able to do about it?”
“All that telling the masses about the Trueworld would do is make them afraid.” Callum said, making a final check to ensure that Josh was secured and stable for the ride home. “If folks knew about the demons running around everywhere passing as humans, they’d start seeing everyone who looked funny to them as demons. You’d have parents performing do-it-yourself exorcisms on their kids for being left-handed, or beating up a neighbor for being epileptic.” He slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine. “The demons would probably love the panic and paranoia that outing them would cause.”
“So we just keep on fighting and humanity keeps on fumbling along, not knowing what’s really causing most of their problems,” Evelyn said, looking over her shoulder to see Josh where he lay in the back of the SUV, Cadell by his side.
Callum tilted his head. “We’re Blessed,” he told her. “That’s kind of what we do.”
Cadell took Josh’s nearly lifeless hand in his and squeezed it. “It’s the way of things,” he said.
Chapter Six
Cai and the others had returned just as dawn was breaking, to be greeted with the smell o
f frying sausage and eggs. Cadell and Callum sat at the kitchen table with piled high plates and oversized coffee mugs in front of them. Both had put on sweat pants and shirts to replace their blood-soaked clothes and had shower-dampened hair. Brandell Selkirk was still working at the stove, scrambling a large panful of eggs. “You boys look like shit,” he said, grinning proudly. “Grab a chair; I’ll get your plates.” “I think we’d better clean up first, grandpa,” Cai said, gesturing to his own blood-drenched, gore-covered clothing.
“Right,” Brandell said, “but get back here before the food gets cold. An army marches on its stomach, and it falls on its face if it doesn’t eat.”
“You’re wise man, Gramps,” Colm said, picking a sausage patty from Cadell’s plate, stuffing it, whole, into his mouth and washing it down with swig of Callum’s coffee. “I’ll be back for more,” he said, leaving the kitchen and taking Callum’s coffee with him.
“How’s Josh?” Cai asked.
“Mom’s still working on him,” Cadell answered.
“She says he’ll be all right in two or three days.”
“Good,” Cai affirmed. “What happens when he
doesn’t show up for work?”
Cadell smiled his thanks to Brandell as he replaced Callum’s coffee and put another sausage patty on his plate to replace the one stolen by Colm. “He took three vacation days before he started this little adventure with us,” Cadell replied. “He should be well enough to at least call himself
in sick again if he needs to by then.”
“How’s the work going on the scrolls?” Cai inquired.
“We don’t know,” Callum said, taking a sip of coffee. “They’ve been locked in the library. Evelyn barely took time to change and shower before they went to work.
Grandpa took them some food, but we haven’t heard a peep out of them.”
“Well,” Cai said, “I guess that gives me time to wash and change.”
“Right,” Callum said. “No matter what they find out when they read the scrolls, chances are we’ll be fighting again really soon. You wouldn’t want to get new blood and guts all over the old blood and guts.” Cai smiled despite himself.
Most of the Selkirks had sought rest and diversion while Eve and Evelyn attempted to decipher the content of Solomon’s scrolls. Clive, having lent his computer and research skills to unlocking the scrolls’ secrets, was cloistered in the library as well. Cadell and Cai had taken up a vigil in the hallway outside the library, while Callum, Colm and Christian were gathered in the living room, lost in the simulated combat of HALO. Astrid was still tending to Josh while Brandell and Helen were preparing dinner. Cai and Cadell had alternately paced in front of the library doors or sat leaning against the hallway walls. Several times they had looked to the doors when they heard movement from the library, only to face the disappointing sight of the still-closed doors. The silence had grown thick between them. Neither had tried to initiate conversation and the tension was building to an oppressive level.
“I hate waiting,” Cai said, finally. “I need to get moving, to do something.” Cadell chuckled. “It’s a fact of history,” he replied. “Warriors have always spent more time waiting to fight than actually fighting. If I didn’t learn that from dad, the Corps sure made me learn it.”
Cai stopped his pacing and looked at Cadell where he sat on the floor across from the library doors. “You didn’t have to go, you know. To the Marines, I mean. I never thought you were trying to take my place as leader of the family,” he said, seating himself beside his youngest brother.
Cadell took a deep breath. “I know that,” he assured his brother. “But Uncle Will, Uncle James and the other patriarchs just kept pushing. And they weren’t just pushing the two of us; they were trying to put ideas in our brothers’ heads, too. None of them would actually turn on you, but I could see doubts about your leadership starting to creep in. Dad’s brothers just wouldn’t have stopped while I was still around.”
“They meant well,” Cai said.
“Good intentions count for shit,” Cadell proclaimed. “They better not start agitating against you again now that I’m home. I cut them some slack because I was still a kid back then and dad had just died, but if they start screwing with the family again, there will be an ass-kicking.” Cai nodded and smiled. “They took advantage of dad’s death. If mom had been in her right mind, she’d have used her magic to give them both the clap.”
Cadell laughed and elbowed Cai gently in the side.
“If they start their shit again, the two of us can tell them to go to hell.”
“Telling someone to go to hell is serious shit for a Blessed,” Cai said with a chuckle.
Cadell turned and looked his brother in the eye. “They wanted to me to take over from you because they thought that I would run things the way they wanted. They wanted to control a Seventh, and they were willing to tear our family apart to do it. They can go to hell, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Take it easy, little brother,” Cai admonished. “They’re family too.” The library door opened and cut short Cadell’s response.
“We have something,” Eve said with Evelyn and Clive behind her. “Get everyone into the living room.”
“The code wasn’t all that tough to break,” Evelyn said between sips of coffee. “It’s a variation of a Vigenère cipher, but most cryptographers would have been unable to make sense of it because it’s a set of instructions about how to cast a spell. Unless you knew to look at in that context, the decryption would look like nonsense.”
“I don’t cast magic,” Eve added, “But I know
spellcraft when I see it. This is a complex spell.” “I have the decrypted message here,” Clive said, setting his laptop on the large oaken coffee table that occupied the center of the room. “Aside from being encrypted, it’s in an ancient form of Aramaic that very few people outside the Blessed would be able to read. I ran it through a translation app I wrote to make sure we’ve translated it correctly.”
Astrid and Helen moved around the table to view the computer monitor. “It’s a location spell,” Astrid said, “a complicated one.”
“All of this trouble to hide a location spell?” Callum asked. “Mom and Helen can do location spells in their sleep.”
“Not this one,” Astrid said. “Common location spells only work within very small areas, a mile or two at most, and you need the object you’re trying to find to have a strong connection to its owner. It looks like this spell can find something anywhere on the planet, and my best guess is that no ward or cloaking magic would be able to keep this spell from finding what it is supposed to locate. I need to study it, but it looks like this was meant specifically to find Solomon’s ring. If cast properly, there’s no way to hide the ring from this spell.”
“I can’t even understand most of this,” Helen admitted. “But it’s a masterful piece of spellcraft.”
“Can you cast it, mom?” Cai asked.
Astrid didn’t look up from the monitor. “I think so, if the translation is accurate,” she replied with a slow nod. “I’ll need to study it, and the preparations will take time. I’ll also need to do a ritual to call enough power to do the casting.”
“I’ll put a copy of the file on your tablet,” Clive said, inserting one end of USB connector into his laptop and the other into his mother’s tablet. “Evelyn, Eve and I can go over the translation again while you’re studying the spellcraft. We had to work so quickly we might have missed something.”
“Right,” Astrid agreed, turning toward Helen.
“Helen, I need you to prepare for an evocation ceremony.” “If it’s going to take you a long time to cast the spell,” Cai inquired, “Will it take Blackwell’s warlock just as long?”
Astrid smiled slightly. “I don’t think his warlock can cast this spell,” she said. “I don’t think any warlock can. This is written so only human magical practitioners can cast it. Blackwell will have to find a human mage, and there aren’t too
many human practitioners that would be able to cast it. The warlock would be able to translate it, and warlocks generally have perfect recall when it comes to spells, but no demon could cast this spell. It’s too full of holy words. I can see four places already that evoke God or his angels. No warlock could speak those words.” “So Blackwell’s warlock isn’t human?” Evelyn asked.
Helen shook her head. “Warlocks are like the
Tainted, only more...” she searched for words. “Advanced,” she explained. “Tainted are human bodies inhabited by one low- or mid-level demon. Warlocks are inhabited by higher level demons. Sometimes several inhabit the body of just one warlock. It makes them powerful magic practitioners, because all of that demonic power is concentrated in just one body. That makes them able to channel much more energy through their bodies without being hurt. “But they can only use dark magic. They can’t evoke the Quarters, so they almost always have to have a source of negative energy to draw on when they cast more powerful spells. They usually draw that power from lower level demons. Sometimes they torment human beings to make them produce negative energy or just surround themselves with evil people.”
“That’s why they tortured and killed those children at Blackwell’s house, to make them give off negative energy,” Evelyn surmised, shivering as she remembered seeing the children’s mutilated bodies.
Cadell put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “This buys us some time,” he said. “It could take Blackwell some time to find a human practitioner who’s stupid or evil enough to help him find the ring. Especially after the damage we did to him at his house.”
Astrid looked to Eve. “Eve, I don’t suppose Randal would come and help me with this spell? It would be more
likely to work and save some time if he was helping.”
Eve held up her cell-phone. “He’s not answering,” she replied. “I’ll text him to let him know that Blackwell is going to be hunting a human practitioner skilled enough to cast that spell. Randal would be on the short list of human mages that could do that. Blackwell might try to force Randal to help him.”
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