Authors: C.N. Crawford
He crept along a path shrouded by magnolia trees, until the lights from the house were no longer visible.
Focus on your task, Tobias.
He would need total seclusion for this next spell. A little incantation like lighting a candle might not create much of an aura, but there was no telling what kind of chaos a conjuring might invite. Any nearby demon or wight would come to greet him.
Tobias slipped deeper through the trees along the riverbank, the night breeze cool against his bare arms. He’d learned how to conjure with the Ragmen. In fact, it was how he and Oswald had practiced pike-fighting against demons. Only knowledge of a demon’s true name could summon them. Unless, of course, you had a different sort of power over them—if you’d dispatched them to the afterlife. But it was a dangerous sort of magic, and he certainly wasn’t going to involve his Boston friends in a spell like this.
Just a few feet from the river, in an overgrown copse of trees, he paused in a small clearing. Moonlight glinted off the water, and thick undergrowth curled from the marshy ground under his feet. Using the athame, he traced a circle close to the ground.
Then, in the center, he drew a triangle. As he completed the final swoop of the athame, flames blazed around him, and an electrifying power flowed through him.
He closed his eyes and envisioned the demon he’d killed—Ms. Bouchard, Mather’s former art teacher. As a succubus, she was beautiful when sated, but a withered hag when her aura grew weak. The mark on his chest began to warm.
“I call upon the succubus Amauberge Bouchard!” His heart raced as he chanted the conjuring spell, stabbing the athame into the earth. The flames rose higher, warming his skin.
Behind him, a gurgling sound rose from the river’s edge. Tobias turned, adrenaline coursing through his veins. Through the trees, he could see a form emerge from boiling water—hunched shoulders, curling silver hair and glistening skin. The creature crawled out of the muck, her breath loud and raspy. She rose to her full height, prowling forward on withered and shaking limbs. When she stepped into the moonlight, Tobias saw her long teeth bared in fury.
The clock ticked over the slow whistling of Mariana’s breath. Fiona pulled sheets up around her shoulders as a wet, perfumed scent floated into her room from the garden. It was a cozy setup in the alcove by the window, but her heart raced whenever she closed her eyes.
Each time her muscles relaxed into sleep, her mind greeted her with images of her burning schoolmates, or the gallows monster snapping Eden’s neck. And when the hair rose on her arms, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something dangerous was brewing by the river.
She rolled over, trying her other side and stretching out her legs.
What is Tobias doing now? Is he asleep like everyone else?
A tapping noise interrupted her thoughts.
She turned to see a bat fluttering outside the warped windowpanes.
She smiled, sitting up and throwing off her sheets.
Byron.
It was just as Tobias had said: her animal familiar had found her. She pushed the window open and the bat flew in, flapping near the ceiling. She swung her legs over the edge of her bed, watching as he swooped around the room.
“Mariana! My familiar is here.”
“Cool,” Mariana mumbled, rolling over and pulling the covers over her head.
As Fiona’s fingers curled around her sheets, a small voice startled her.
Are you going to talk about me as though I’m not here?
She jumped. Her familiar hadn’t spoken out loud, but his voice arose in her head like a thought. He drew in closer, circling her. “Hello?” he asked in her head.
It felt awkward talking to an animal. “Hello,” she muttered, staring at her hands.
“Ah. Not very strong socially, are we?”
“You’re talking in my head,” she said defensively. “And you’re an animal. It’s a little weird.”
“I can hide behind a doll to appear human, if that would make it any better.”
Fiona shuddered. “A doll talking in my head would be far worse.”
“Are you going to name me?”
“Yes. Byron, after my favorite poet.” She threw off her covers, forcing herself to look at him flapping by the ceiling. “Did you see anything weird going on outside? I can’t sleep. I thought I felt an aura nearby.”
“Something drew me here tonight.”
I knew it.
She pulled her hair into a quick ponytail. “Who’s conducting spells?”
“I don’t know. Something by the river, but I didn’t see what it was. The spell is drawing in magical creatures.”
Fiona shivered. “Shall we go out for a look?” She stood, cracking the window wider to peak out into the misty night. A few guards stood watch around the back of the house. Near the drawing-room exit, the pale behemoth stood as still as a mountain. On the other side of the door, a mustached man shuffled from side to side, looking out into the gardens.
She chanted the transformation spell, bracing herself for the painful metamorphosis. A
s she uttered the last word, her skin tingled with the magical aura. Her skeleton condensed. Wings erupted from her fingers, her muscles contracted, and a downy fur blossomed on her back as she rose into the air.
In moments, her agonized body felt weightless. She circled the room. As her throat emitted high-pitched squeaks, the space transformed, its crevices and protrusions now wrapped in ultrasonic waves. Mariana’s chest rose and fell in sleep, and a mosquito wavered near the ceiling. The clock’s ticking was almost deafening.
She darted through the window after Byron, the night air exhilarating on her wings. She swooped over the gardens, her heart leaping with the thrill of flight. The grounds were dark at this time of night, but it didn’t matter. Echolocation allowed her to perceive every contour below—flowers bending in the breeze, insects flitting through the air.
She flew to the river in a low arc. Frogs croaked along the riverbank, and crickets chirruped in the tall grasses. As she circled back over the shore, two things caught her attention. To one side of the bank, a small fire blazed in a magnolia grove. There was at least one person there, maybe two. But she was more alarmed by the frantic howl rising from the other side of the gardens, accompanied by a wild banging sound.
Is it coming from the cemetery?
With Byron close behind, she glided toward the forbidden graveyard. The air filled with a ragged keening sound. Alongside Byron, she passed over the hedge labyrinth toward the stone walls. It was a square cemetery, fifty feet across. Crooked statues of forlorn angels wept in a variety of poses—an angel appealed to the heavens with grief, another threw herself in despair on a grave. One appeared to rend at her hair in utter devastation. Moss covered the walls and lichens climbed up the melancholy statues, threatening to suffocate them.
But what the hell is making that wailing noise?
A large stone crypt stood near the furthest cemetery wall, its door barred with a wrought-iron grate. Behind the grate was a glass door, and the sound came from there. Someone was locked inside the crypt, banging on the gate, but the glass prevented Fiona from sensing any contours within.
Byron fluttered her way. “Mrs. Ranulf is coming.”
Fiona flew higher above the labyrinth. Munroe’s mother was sprinting through the hedge maze in her silken bathrobe. Her strawberry blond curls bounced over her shoulders, her feet crunching along the gravel path. The wailing from the crypt only rose in volume. When Mrs. Ranulf reached the entry to the cemetery, she pulled a skeleton key out of her bathrobe pocket. Panting heavily, she swung open the wooden door.
Her chalice necklace glinted in the cool evening light as she trotted through the grief-stricken angels, making her way to the crypt. She slotted the key into the lock on the wrought-iron gate. Fiona circled closer, hoping to get a view of the person locked inside.
Still gripping the key, Mrs. Ranulf paused. Her pale, moonlit face turned toward Fiona. Icy, iron-gray eyes stared directly at the two bats. She pointed at them, growling the word,
“Witch!”
Her tiny heart pattering, Fiona soared higher, past Byron. Exhilarated by her near discovery, she swooped over the gardens and back to her window. Mrs. Ranulf had looked directly at her.
Did she know it was me? And who is she keeping in the crypt?
Ms. Bouchard took a rasping breath and staggered toward him, her shrunken skin clinging to her spare frame. Hollow black eyes fixed on him, and her long finger jabbed the air in front of his face. “You.”
He stood straight, pointing the athame at her chest. The flames around him ebbed to glowing embers. He lowered his chin. “Ms. Bouchard.”
“You
murdered
me,” she gasped, now only a foot away from him.
He gripped the athame and a fiery light crackled up the blade. “You
were
trying to suck the life out of me, if you recall.”
Her pale, pointy tongue ran over parched lips. She took another staggering step closer, sunken eyes opened wide. “I wouldn’t mind some more of that life.” She lunged.
Tobias leapt backward, lashing out with the athame. Ms. Bouchard dodged the knife, losing her balance and toppling onto the marshy ground. She bared her teeth in a snarl.
“I didn’t call you up to fight you.”
“What do you want from me?” She lay sprawled in the undergrowth.
“A favor.”
“Why would I help you?” She pushed herself up on her elbows.
“I’ve returned to you to your corporeal form. If you don’t help me, I’ll send you back to serve Nyxobas.”
“Oooh,” she cooed. “The Tatter boy threatens to send me back to my night god.”
“I’m stronger than I used to be.” Fire sparked from the athame’s tip.
She rose on shaky legs, long fingers rubbing at her protruding ribs. “I know that, Tobias. I know all your secrets.” Twigs snapped beneath her bony feet as she tottered toward him.
He gritted his teeth. “I want you to find Jack Hawthorne and drain him.”
Her breath rattled in her lungs. “In return for letting me live on earth, just like I had for thousands of years before I met you? How gracious.” She twisted a gray curl around her finger. A smile crept over her withered lips. “You do know that there’s a price for what you’ve done with Emerazel, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
I have no idea what it is, though.
“You’re in way over your head.” She inched forward, placing a skeletal hand on his shoulder. “If I’m going to find Jack, I’ll need something more from you. I’m not going to get very far looking like this. I need strength.”
This was the part he’d dreaded. He lowered the athame to his side, taking a shuddering breath. He’d been the recipient of one of her kisses before. It had been unpleasant on a number of levels.
Her dark eyes transfixed him, immobilizing his body. Now he couldn’t move even if he wanted to. Dry fingers thrust into his hair, gripping his black locks. She pulled his face to hers, clamping her wizened lips on his like a leech seeking blood. The breath escaped his lungs, and a sharp sense of foreboding gripped his chest. Every nerve in his body screamed at him to run, but his limbs wouldn’t obey.
This time, though, as she drew energy from him, he could feel it replenishing. Warm power surged through his veins, melting the knot in his chest.
Amauberge
’s flesh grew soft against his skin, her lips now supple. She pressed against him. His limbs were free to move now, but the impulse to flee had subsided. His arms slid up the smooth skin on her back, into her soft hair.
She pulled her face away from his, but kept her arms wrapped around his neck. Tobias found himself staring into her sparkling green eyes and rosy cheeks, her auburn hair tumbling over pale shoulders. He swallowed. She was completely naked. He tried not to glance at her breasts, staring instead at her forehead.
Don’t look down, Tobias.
“Well, I’m certainly feeling refreshed. Are you sure you’re not interested in another sort of bargain?”
His mouth went dry. It was extremely tempting, but he had to stay focused.
Remember how she looked a few minutes ago.
And yet, he didn’t want to pull himself away. He stared at her hairline. “I need you to find Jack. I can help you find some clothes.”
“I can fend for myself, believe me.” She smiled wryly, licking her lips. “Your past is deliciously filling, though.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I find sustenance in despair.” She ran the back of her fingers along his cheek. “There are things you don’t even remember that eat you up inside. It must take a lot of energy, running away from yourself.”
His jaw clenched. “I’m sure you’ll find plenty of misery to feed from with Jack. He’s been miserable for centuries.”
“Sounds delectable. It’s a shame I couldn’t have fed from little Eden before she died. Her anguish would have fueled me for months.”
Her arms still draped over his shoulders, and her breath was sweet, but Eden’s name on her lips made Tobias’s spine go rigid. He gripped her arms, yanking them from his neck and stepping back. He inhaled deeply, calming his nerves. He tried to focus on her eyes.
Stepping back from him, her expression shifted into mock horror. She made a show of covering herself up with her hands. Her silky flesh shined in the moonlight. Of course, she wasn’t really covering anything. “It’s so frightening being out here in the woods with a big strong man like you. I’m at your mercy.” She thrust out a hip, hands glancing over the curves of her breasts. Tobias wanted nothing more than to throw himself at her.