Read Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic Online

Authors: Meghan Ciana Doidge

Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fantasy, #Paranormal & Urban, #Sword & Sorcery

Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic (8 page)

BOOK: Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic
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Neither was the library. It smelled musty and dusty and like moldy leaves. By the gasp that emanated from the vampire, I gathered that Kett felt the complete opposite.

I scanned the bookshelves that stood double my height around the edges of the walls and within curtained alcoves. Replace the pedestals with shoulder-height lengths of shelving and the red velvet curtains with royal blue, and this room was a duplicate of the gallery below. Except for the fireplace and seating area on the far curved wall. And the obviously magical picture-framed window overlooking the wide, moonlit river below.

Blackwell’s reading nook … how cute. The fireplace didn’t seem to have a proper chimney or vent — more magical showing off. I was beginning to understand Gran’s conservatism when it came to magic. Throwing it around was flashy and wasteful.

“Your sister Sienna took — stole — two items when we parted ways in the caves,” Blackwell said as he made a beeline for the reading area. “I would like them back.”

“What, pray tell?” Yeah, I got he was Scottish, not English, but I wasn’t above mocking him.

Blackwell continued forward without answering, which was okay. I was accustomed to being ignored by my elders when I was being mouthy.

The stone floor was covered by a thick Persian rug in front of the fireplace, which blazed to life as Blackwell passed by it. The rug was incongruent with the Victorian-looking love seat and chair, and I avoided stepping on it.

Kett began listing toward the bookshelves as we passed by. I kicked him in the calf with a back flick of my foot and he righted himself.

Blackwell stepped into the alcove positioned to the right of the magical window, and I turned to look at the room I’d just passed through.

Kandy, once again, stayed by the door. Her arms were crossed and her face grim. Unhappy wolf. Yeah, me too.

Drake peered at the fire for a moment — dragon’s loved watching magic in action — but he quickly grew bored and paced around looking at the books.

Blackwell stepped back out from the alcove with a leather-bound book in hand. He passed it to me, and then waited expectantly.

Great. Another test, was it?

I sighed. The book’s black leather binding looked new. The title was embossed in gold along the spine but not on the front cover.
The Book of Demon History on Earth
.

“Catchy title,” I said.

I flipped the book open. It was filled with pages and pages of cramped, black-inked handwriting that — by firelight, anyway — was incomprehensible. I flipped a few more pages. The author had also included sketches of demons, symbols — runes, I guessed — and weapons. The chapters were chronological by date and seemed to begin in the fourteenth century.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “Its magic is dim. This isn’t a book of power.”

“The book is not the original, of course,” Blackwell said. He was back to watching me intently. Normally that would bother me — I wasn’t some science experiment — except this time I knew he was waiting for me to piece something together.

“Sienna stole the original? Why would —”
 

I stopped flipping. I recognized the wickedly curved knife depicted on the page I now held open. It was the blade that Sienna had used to murder Jeremy.

“You hire a duplicator?” Kett asked. Blackwell intrigued Kett far more than I liked. But then, I wasn’t the vampire’s keeper. In fact, I really hoped to never meet his keeper.

“Seems prudent,” Blackwell answered.

As I understood it, Kett was turned, not born, which meant that some other vampire’s blood had animated his corpse. And blood heeded blood. Yep, Kett’s master would be a terrifying being, who the vampire would have to obey in all things. At least that was what the limited number of books on vampires that I could find in the dragon nexus said.

“Duplication,” I said. “A duplicator.” Yeah, I was a bit behind.

“Yes,” Blackwell said.

“But he or she cannot duplicate the magic within the pages.”

“No.”

“Because magic can’t be created or destroyed,” I said. “So the duplicator borrows from the original?”

“A small amount,” Blackwell answered. “Not enough to diminish the original —”

Kett snorted. I’d never heard him make such an indelicate noise.

Blackwell shut his mouth and grimaced.

“What was the second item?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“Actually, it was the first.” Blackwell tapped the sketch I’d recognized.

The knife. But did Sienna still have it? It had been in Mory’s hands the last I saw it — covered in Jeremy’s blood. But Sienna had Mory.

Kandy had managed to save my mother, who’d been magically depleted from holding the demon at bay, but not Mory. The werewolf had protected the more vulnerable, as she should have, but lost the necromancer and the knife. I’d have to call Scarlett to confirm that Mory hadn’t dropped the knife after I dragged the demon through the portal. It wasn’t something I had reason to ask before. Unless Kandy knew.

“How is any of this supposed to help me find Sienna? Why would she want this book in the first place? She’s not a sorcerer.”

“It’s not that kind of a book. It’s merely information. Some would call these accounts fairy tales.”

“Yeah, I know all about Adept bedtime stories coming true. I’m still waiting on the elves to show.”

“Really?” Blackwell asked, very interested in this possibility.

“No, sorcerer. That was sarcasm. So this helps me how?”

“The book is a duplicate,” Kett prompted me, but not unkindly.

“So what?” I asked. They gave me a minute. “You think I can track the original with this one. What are you smoking?” Blackwell furrowed his brow. He was as unhip as the vampire when it came to slang. “Fine. Even if I could do that, I’d have to be near the other book, and if I was that close, I’d taste Sienna’s magic first. You know, with all the blood magic and mayhem in her veins.”

Blackwell shrugged. “I have no idea why your sister wanted the book or what she plans on doing with it. Other than the obvious.”

“It’s a history of demons. It’s not like they’re walking the earth. They’ve been vanquished back to their own …” I looked to Kett, hit with a completely irrational and impossible realization. “Mory …” If Sienna had stolen Mory’s necromancy powers, would she think she was capable of raising vanquished demons?

The vampire tilted his head thoughtfully. He liked to hedge his bets, which was fine by me. One of us had to be rational when it came to Sienna, and it wasn’t going to be me.

My sister already had a taste for manipulating the dead. She used Hudson’s corpse — my would-be boyfriend and Kandy’s pack mate — to try to kill Kett six months ago. But demons, according to my father Yazi, came from another dimension and dissolved into ash when vanquished. Necromancers needed a dead body in order to reanimate it, didn’t they?

I glanced back at the entry that accompanied the picture of the sacrificial knife. “Dorset Street. London. 1888.”

“Three demons,” Blackwell said. “Summoned by an ancestor of mine. He died in the attempt. I believe the humans attributed his sacrifice to their Jack the Ripper myth.”

‘Sacrifice’ was the completely wrong word to use for murder. Why was I just standing here chatting with this asshole? Right, Mory.

“She’s not that powerful,” I said to Kett. “She was only able to raise that demon in the Sea Lion Caves, because he —” I spat the word in Blackwell’s direction — “laid the spell. With this … she’d be combining completely different types of magic. It’s impossible, isn’t it?”
 

Kett, who was reading the entry over my shoulder, didn’t answer. I couldn’t bring myself to try to focus on the cramped writing. My mind was reeling, actually attempting to not put the pieces of the Sienna puzzle together.

My stomach churned but I forced myself to speak the fear growing there. “But we know what she does to become more powerful.”

“I imagine there are a few sorcerers in London,” Kett said, but to Blackwell not me.

“Yes,” Blackwell answered. “Why?”

“They’re in danger,” I said. “She’s going to need the power of a sorcerer to raise a demon.”

“Please,” Blackwell said, actually chortling.

“My sister kills the Adept for their power,” I said, grinding the words between my teeth.

“Fleeting power, if she ever —”

“Her specialty, before she went dark, was binding magic.”

Blackwell blanched. “She’s figured out how to steal, then retain and utilize different types of magic?”

“Yes. I’m surprised she hasn’t come back for you.” Blackwell jutted his chin at me, about to protest but I cut him off. “She currently has her hands on a necromancer —”

“Then the necromancer is dead,” Blackwell said. His blunt assessment cut into the bubble of hope I was holding for Mory. “She’ll need a powerful sorcerer if she’s trying to do as you suspect. Not that I could even fathom it being possible to summon vanquished demons even with the power of a necromancer combined with a sorcerer. Not only would the magic be incompatible, but vanquished demons simply no longer exist in this world.”
 

“Can you give us a name?” Kett asked.

“Yes.” Blackwell turned away to a writing desk in the corner by the alcove and put pen to parchment.

The power of a sorcerer, a necromancer, and a sacrificial knife all in Sienna’s hands. Plus the location of a successful demon summoning …

“My sister is trying to raise vanquished demons,” I said. Saying it out loud didn’t make it any less ridiculous or unthinkable. Unfortunately, it also didn’t make it untrue.

“So it would seem,” Kett said.

“You don’t have to be so pleased about it,” I muttered, trying to find my protective layer of snark even as my heart clenched, then began to race. “Three vanquished demons.”

“Yes,” Kett said. His smile widened and red rolled across his ice-blue eyes. “And you with a pretty new sword to break in.” His eyes flicked to the hilt of my katana slung behind and sitting slightly above my right shoulder.

Yeah, great. Hanging with immortal and often-bored beings was so going to be the death of me.

CHAPTER FIVE

Southern Europe, or maybe it was properly called ‘Western Europe,’ was the territory of the guardian Suanmi, aka the fire breather, aka Drake’s actual guardian. Using a portal at a grid point seemed innocuous enough that it wouldn’t get Pulou’s attention. Using that same portal to try to get into London via another portal almost exclusively used by Suanmi was a very stupid idea.

I had planned to return to the nexus immediately after confronting Blackwell, and from there formulate a plan — based on whatever info I’d managed to get from the sorcerer — to confront Sienna. Now, knowing my sister might be in London with Mory, I felt I needed to press on, plan or no plan. But my twenty-four hour pass was so going to run out, like in just over twelve hours.
 

Thankfully, they don’t check passports between Scotland and England. Unfortunately, that meant being confined in a vehicle with three other powerful Adepts for seven hours, not including bathroom breaks. I wasn’t sure my dowser senses could take it, but our swords would be impossible to conceal on a plane and rather obvious on a train. The idea of Kett confined to a plane forty thousand feet in the air was a whole other level of concern, though he was currently in Scotland and had previously been in Vancouver, so he must fly. Maybe he had access to a private jet exclusively used by vampires.

“We could buy some yoga mats,” I said to Kandy as we walked to the edge of the front lawn of Blackness Castle. Kett had disappeared into the dark night, and I could only guess that Blackwell was watching us from another magical window higher up in the central tower.

“Things are super weird if you’re jonesing for yoga rather than chocolate,” the green-haired werewolf said.

“No, we could wrap our swords —”

“I’m not wrapping my sword in a yoga mat,” Drake interrupted. He was as affronted by this suggestion as any easily distractible thirteen-year-old could be.

“Does he even know what yoga is?” Kandy mock whispered.

“Yeah,” I said. “Eastern philosophy is highly regarded in dragon training. No mats, though.”

I really didn’t like standing with my back to Blackness Castle. I really hoped I had guessed correctly that Blackwell couldn’t cast anything nasty at us through his own wards. The sorcerer had led us out of the castle without a word, but he was going to be totally pissed when he examined the mangled wards at the front gates.

Drake was balancing on the low stone wall while Kandy and I waited for the vampire to return. That was assuming he was going to return promptly … I never really knew with him. He might fall into one of his fugue states.

“I don’t like leaving it like this, but I’m glad to be out of there,” Kandy said.

“Same here.”

“He is nothing,” Drake said. “A speck of darkness in a beautiful world.” The fledgling guardian, steady as the wall itself, was practicing one-legged crane kicks now.

“That’s very dragon of you, Drake,” I said.

The thirteen-year-old grinned at me. “Your cares are interesting to me, warrior’s daughter. I’m looking forward to the demons.”

“The point is to stop Sienna from raising them. If raising them is even possible in the first place.”

Drake shrugged, then pivoted to practice his kicks leading with the opposite leg.

“He doesn’t sound like any thirteen-year-old I’ve ever known,” Kandy said. She was watching Drake intently.

“I’m not sure he’s ever been around any other fledglings. He’s the youngest dragon I’ve ever seen. I don’t think they procreate much.” Plus, Drake’s mentor — Chi Wen the far seer — was ancient. As in, nine-hundred-plus-years old. The old Asian man loved to smile but he wasn’t big on words, play, or the latest trends. I gathered his seer power was rather all consuming.

Kandy’s eyes flared green and she darted forward. I had my knife in my hand before I realized what the wolf was doing. She silently aimed a spin kick to the back of Drake’s right knee. A breath before she made contact, Drake bounded into the air, tucking both legs up and away from Kandy’s blow. Then, twisting in the air, he grabbed her still-outthrust leg and flipped the werewolf — actually, spun her sideways like an airborne top — onto her back on the grass.

BOOK: Treasures, Demons, and Other Black Magic
12.04Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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