The Bonds of Blood (25 page)

“When was the last time you saw Astanel
Lusmore?” Madalinda asked the man, stepping forward and resting her
weight needlessly on the black cane.

The rasping, rattling noise coming from
Beckindal abruptly stopped with a gurgle, and the accused man’s
voice issued monotonously from the creature’s mouth, as if
Beckindal were channeling his spirit.

“I saw him the night he disappeared,”
the man’s voice said from Beckindal’s gaping maw. Jovian noticed
with a shudder that Beckindal’s mouth never moved, but instead
stayed hanging open as the voice echoed out between his parted
lips.

“And what was he doing?” Madalinda
asked.

“He was walking,” the voice droned out.
“He did not look like himself; he looked different, more
powerful.”

Jovian wondered how someone could look
more powerful, and he thought Madalinda was considering the same
thing, for she pursed her lips in a frown.

“Where was he going?” she
continued.

“West, but not traveling by way of the
road. He was walking out into the fields.”

“Was there anything else you noticed
about him that seemed odd?”

“No,” the voice said.

“And what were you doing?” she
asked.

“I was traveling home from my parents’
house.”

“Where is that? And why were you on the
road so late?”

“They live a few miles out of town. I
was traveling so late because I had gotten a late start that
afternoon.” Madalinda tossed a glance behind her to a person that
Jovian could not see, then she shook her head.

“You know that he cannot lie during
this type of interrogation, Madalinda,” the bored voice said as if
scolding the constable.

Madalinda considered for a time, and
then said, “That is enough, Beckindal.” By the tone of her voice
she had not found what she wanted. The white creature closed his
mouth with several pops as his jaw slipped back into place. He
removed his hands from the accused man’s head.

The man (who didn’t look much older
than Jovian) abruptly slumped out of the chair onto the floor,
weeping and cowering as if he had just received a severe beating.
Jovian noticed that he was also itching at his head as if trying to
claw something out.

“That would be the feeling of bugs
crawling around in your head,” Jovian heard Grace say behind him.
He nearly jumped out of his skin at the sudden voice and looked at
her trying to calm his racing heart.

“What?” he pressed his hand to his
chest.

“The feeling of one of those things
rummaging around in your head is most unpleasant I am told,” Grace
said, frowning her disapproval at the door. She had that look on
her face that suggested she was recalling a piece of her haunted
past. “It is a most barbaric act that I am shocked is still in
practice.”

“What is that white man? I have never
seen anyone like him before,” Jovian asked.

“That is a verax-acis,” Grace informed
him simply. “They are hideous creatures, used to pillage an accused
person’s mind for answers that will help a case posed before the
court.”

“They are used all the
time?”

“No, not all the time; only when there
is no other way. They are used when a case has been opened for too
long and there is no more credible evidence. The person that seems
most guilty by a number of votes in the court—or in this case the
town—is called forth and touched by the verax-acis. With the touch,
the verax-acis inserts itself into the person’s mind. Questions are
then asked, and the verax-acis is able to speak the answers, if
there are any to be had.”

“But the verax-acis’s voice, it was the
same as the man’s.”

“Yes, it would be because a verax-acis
has no voice of its own. They channel the person they touch; they
channel the person’s answer.”

“So the answer is torn from the
person?” Jovian shuddered.

“Yes, it is. The mind is raped, and the
answer torn from them often unwillingly. This, of course, leaves
the person less than what they were. They are often haunted for the
rest of their lives after the verax-acis touches them. The
jittering will pass in time, provided that they were not exposed to
prolonged contact, but the memory of it will live on in
them.”

“What if the touch lasts too long?”
Jovian almost knew the answer before it came, but he needed to know
for sure.

“If they are touched for too long they
may never recover completely. They may be insane fully or partly.
In extreme cases they can’t function mentally, but in all cases of
prolonged exposure the person normally suffers tremors of some
sort, normally in the face as the brain tries to fix the
malfunction the touch causes.”

Taking Jovian by the arm Grace pulled
him further down the hall as the constable came out the trial
room.

Again the woman smiled tightly at them,
to which Grace returned a scowl, and the verax-acis leered at
Jovian. Jovian felt Grace place a firm hand on his arm, pulling him
away from the creature, and she placed herself between the two of
them protectively. Jovian thought this was a bit unnecessary, but
the moment she did so the deadly-white man looked back down
uninterested.

“You want to be careful of those
things, Jovian,” Grace cautioned him as she stepped away. “When
they look at a person like that it means they desire
them.”

“What? Desire them?”

“For food. They feed off a person’s
mind as if it is the finest of all foods. They don’t look at
someone unless they are thinking of attacking them.” Jovian was
instantly haunted by the image of Beckindal’s unhinged mouth gaping
open before him, his mind twisting violently through Jovian’s like
millions of fingers squirming around in his head.

He shivered violently and could not
speak for some time. In fact, it wasn’t until the accused was led,
shaking and weeping, out of the courthouse that Jovian
spoke:

“Who is this Astanel Lusmore they are
looking for?” He whispered so as not to disturb the pitiable Randal
Johnston being led away.

“Rosalee tells me that he is a boy that
went missing from the town not to long before your birthday party.
He is fifteen and destined to be a sorcerer I am told. This will be
the first sorcerer Meedesville has seen in some time now.” Grace
looked at Jovian as if this were significant, though he could not
imagine why sorcerers were often well respected. He nodded though,
as if he comprehended why this made so much difference.

“We should get back to Rosalee’s home
though; Angelica is insisting that we all clean up before the
ritual. She keeps saying that it is a sign of reverence or
something,” Grace sniffed as though she could care less and walked
out of the courthouse, Jovian trailing behind her.

“So this boy went missing not long
before our birthday you said?” Jovian queried.

“Wondered how long it was going to take
you to piece together the possible connection.” Grace smiled at him
and he had the feeling her carefully chosen words were her way of
calling him slow.

“Yes, so you think the same way I do
then?”

“A possible connection between Astanel
Lusmore and Amber? Jovian, there is much evidence against this
train of thought.”

Jovian furrowed his brows in
concentration and scratched his face. He scowled as he felt the
prickle of his unshaven jaw.

“There was only one set of human prints
with the tracks we saw,” she supplied as if she were explaining
something to a child.

“So what are we saying here?” Jovian
asked. “Do we think there is a connection?”

“Yes, I do think there is a connection,
however, now I do not think those tracks we saw which we believed
to be Amber’s had anything to do with either of them.”

“But the prints of … that thing were
there,” Jovian pointed out.

Grace scowled. “There is that,” she
said looking perplexed having still not found another creature that
matched his description.

“Unless, of course, a Grigori has come
back into power—”

“Which is utterly impossible,” Grace
barked, wiping the pleasant look from her face. “We are here,” she
said walking to a stone cottage in what looked like a small field
of flowers. In fact, the only place that was not swamped with
flowers was the paths that led around the yard and up to the front
porch. Jovian noted that the path leading to the front porch was
nearly as twisted as the woman who lived in the house. Grace,
however, did not follow the path that meandered around the front
yard, but instead cut straight through a large bed of mums that
stood between her and the porch and continued up the stairs. A
reproachful shriek echoed from inside.

“What are we going to do then?” he
asked. “If it is not a Grigori—”

“Which it isn’t—”

“Which it isn’t,” he cut her off, “then
what is it?”

Grace looked at him from where she
stood on the large stone porch, her hand perched on the railing,
and the other sternly planted on her hip. A glower marred her
grandmotherly face complemented by silence.

Jovian looked down to his feet; that
look from her always had the same effect on him.

“We continue east. I am confident in
your earlier supposition that they went that way,” Grace said and
when he made to interrupt her she stamped her foot with a growl. He
looked up to see her glaring at him and pointing to the right of
the house. “Out back you will find a well. Wash up and change your
clothes before the ceremony.”

Grace pivoted sharply on her heel and
shut the door firmly behind her.

As Jovian walked around the corner,
following the meandering paths that led in the complete opposite
direction of where he wanted to go, he heard Rosalee scolding Grace
for what Jovian imagined was due to the mistreatment of her
mums.

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

_J
ovian
was silent as he followed
Angelica and the others through the winding gardens
surrounding Rosalee’s house. They turned left onto the alley beyond
her front gate and proceeded to walk to the outskirts of town. A
lull in conversation followed them all as they went along their
way, but Jovian was certain that most of them were not thinking as
he was, rather were focused instead on the coming ritual. Jovian
was not big on group ceremonies; he found them too rehearsed, too
planned.

The day was winding down even more now,
and the sun had completely set, leaving the air stifling and dark.
As he walked, his mind was absorbed with the mysterious
disappearances of Astanel and Amber, assuming there to be some sort
of connection there. He was convinced, no matter what Grace said,
that something worse than slave trade was going on. However, the
crone was convinced that it was not the work of the
Grigori.

Jovian had to agree. He did not think
that the appearance of the Grigori again would be so subtle, as
insignificant as the abduction of two citizens of the Holy
Realm.

He wondered why Grace got so worked up
over his mention of the Grigori. Jovian understood that she had
been alive when the world split, but why had she become so furious
with him at the mention of the Grigori? Every time the topic of the
Splitting of the World was brought up, she assumed an odd
disposition, as if something dreadful had transpired with her then
and she refused to recount it.

Suddenly he came to an abrupt stop
moments before slamming into Angelica. He came up on his tiptoes
and made a slight hissing noise, which earned him a scowl and a jab
in the ribs from Angelica.

Craning his head, Jovian could see men
dressed in light blue robes up ahead, moving a smoking container
around each person in turn. From the smell of the smoke wafting his
way, Jovian figured this was the ceremonial white sage smudging to
cleanse each parishioner of impurities.

The line inched forward as the two men
with the smoking censers parted to let each freshly cleansed person
through. Jovian noticed that there were more men standing beyond
the first two who would help each person take a place in the field
before the altar.

As the men’s faces came into view,
Jovian thought he recognized the one with a head revealing the
beginnings of black stubble. He remembered that men often shaved
their heads when they were undertaking their vows to the Goddess
before training to become a votary. Seeing how he didn’t know any
aspiring clergyman, Jovian figured it was just a figment of his
imagination, so he waited patiently as the line slowly progressed
forward.

Finally it was his turn to be smudged,
and Jovian raised his arms out to the side at chest level. He
closed his eyes, not due to reverence, but instead to the fact that
every time he kept his eyes open while being smudged he got smoke
in them.

Soon he was standing beside Angelica,
his head bowed, waiting for the ritual to start.

It took what seemed like ages for all
the parishioners of the town to gather around the altar in a half
circle, backs facing the town. Silently the robed men gathered
before the altar.