When Samantha regained her senses, she was sitting, leaning against a wall next to Andrea. All she could move was her neck, but it allowed her to turn and see to her right where she found Serena and Mike. The latter looked awful. His back was drenched in blood, and his chin rested against his chest, unconscious; thank heavens he was breathing.
Andrea stirred, beginning to wake up, and Serena groaned a little.
Samantha looked about the room and saw four Warlocks and a witch, each one wearing goggles. Julander, Coach Hawthorne, the guidance counselor, Ms. Vanderhoff, Mr. Whitmore, her English teacher, and another man she had never seen before. Unlike the others who were wearing coveralls, this unknown man wore an expensive suit, and his hair was combed back with close attention to detail. Together they resembled human-bug hybrids with the goggles covering their eyes.
Other than the five followers of Baal, a hawk stood proudly on a perch rammed into the stone wall; it looked with piercing eyes down on the well-dressed man. Next to Mr. Whitmore, a weasel stood on its hind legs, twitching but obviously paying attention to the proceedings. At Julander’s feet was the mangy-looking dog from earlier, its fur gray and mottled as if it had come from a fight it had lost. A cheetah paced back and forth around Coach Hawthorne. A lizard crawled from shoulder to shoulder on Ms. Vanderhoff.
Behind the witches and their familiars, Samantha could see a red glowing ring about five feet in height. It stood balanced on an edge, pulsing and flickering. Unlike a neon tube or light bulb, the glow that radiated from the clear stone reminded Samantha more of blood pumping through an artery than neon gasses illuminated by electricity.
She struggled with her invisible bonds, only to stop when it occurred to her they hadn’t gagged her. They didn’t know she was a naricaster. They had tied the witches’ hands so that they couldn’t cast spells. But they had forgotten about those who could cast spells by facial movements; they were rare, almost unheard of. It hadn’t occurred to them that she could still work magic even while her limbs were held in place.
Julander gestured over at the bound students. “The Key has woken up.”
“About time, Sahwin—or should I call you Samantha?” said the well-dressed man. He looked down on her with imperious eyes. “We found your secret entrance. One day you’ll have to tell me how you stumbled across it. No one here knew about it.” He nodded back at the other witches. “But, no harm. We have you now. I believe you are acquainted with everyone.” He gestured toward the three warlocks and the witch. “With the exception of me.”
The well-dressed warlock looked over at Serena and smiled. “Glad you could join us. As Samantha’s familiar you’re not going to want to miss the big show. Although I must say, I’m surprised at how liberally she allows you human form.”
He kicked Mike, who groaned and started to come around. Andrea, now fully awake, looked up at the man with a mixture of hatred and fear.
“My name is Bhantu. I lead the Northern Coven. Were you taught about me?”
Samantha nodded. “I know who you are.”
“Then you know that Ghohol was unable to destroy me. He was forced to exile me and my forces to the north. But that’s all going to change. Once I get the Grimoire, I am going to overthrow Ghohol and create a single world-wide coven, which I will reign over. We’ll then enslave mankind and rule the entire world.” He looked down on his captives who were awake and glaring at him.
Samantha set her jaw. “I will never get the Grimoire for you.”
“Oh, is that so? You will. That’s not the question. The question is whether the Warder will survive while you’re getting it for me.”
Samantha bit her tongue a little longer, but it was taking all her self-control not to hurl a spell at him right now.
“Why am I the only one who can get the Grimoire?”
The four warlocks chuckled at her confusion.
“That was puzzling to us as well,” Bhantu explained. “Molock cast a spell to protect the Grimoire. The only one who can pass through the rings must be able to answer the riddle: When is three thousand less than a score? You my dear are the only one capable of answering the riddle and passing through the rings. You were born more than three thousand years ago. Yet, in real-time, you’re only seventeen years of age. You are the answer to the riddle, and only you can retrieve the Grimoire.”
Samantha could stand it no more. This narcissistic warlock needed to be brought down. She wanted to see him squirm. After what he’d done to Darren, she was ready to kill him, if only she’d known a spell that would do it. Extreme pain would have to suffice. “Dolens valde!” she cried and twitched her nose, casting the spell at him.
Unexpectedly, Samantha was stabbed through the back by a long blade of fire. The pain was so tremendous she screamed in unexpected pain. Her friends looked at her in horror, fearing that Bhantu had cursed her for her belligerence.
“Stop it!” Serena bellowed.
“Quit it!” Mike yelled.
The witches standing over them looked surprised before breaking out into smug laughter. Samantha squirmed within her confinement, turning red in her anguish.
Serena shuffled from side to side, doing her best to free herself, wiggling and pulling at her invisible restraints. “Stop it! She’ll get the Grimoire for you. Just stop hurting her!”
“If I ever get out of here,” Mike threatened in a low voice. He jerked from side to side, grimacing at the possibility of getting free.
“Oh, this is delicious.” Bhantu chuckled. “You foolish child.” He walked over to Samantha and waved his arm above her head. “Abrogare.”
Samantha’s pain vanished. She stopped screaming, her eyes wet with tears and her forehead damp with sweat. She was lying on the ground, breathing hard, trying to regain herself.
“Did we forget to tell you about the Tergiversatio?” From under his shirt, he pulled out an amulet hung by a gold chain. A bright green stone, the center of which was black as night, was incased by a reflective frame that looked to be half steel, half glass.
“The Tergiversatio is a little trinket we found since we’ve been down here: a very powerful amulet.” He chuckled again. “It reflects the spell cast on the wearer back at the caster. Whatever that painful spell was you cast at me, it fell on you. Apparently, you’re not too fond of me, judging by your reaction. In any case it became my spell to control after that, so only I could release you from your pain. I could have let it continue. It’s a good thing you didn’t cast your spell at your school administrator. He loves a good show.”
Bhantu hovered over Samantha and set her back up against the wall next to her friends. His large forefinger came down on her nose. “I must say, I hadn’t expected you to be a naricaster. That might have been fatal had I not been wearing this thing.” He shook the chain about his neck. “If you had been less kind than I, and not released me from the pain, I probably would have released you all. I must never underestimate you. There is definitely a reason you were selected for this task.”
Bhantu waved his arm at her. “Consurgio!” Samantha levitated to her feet.
“Here is what’s going to happen. You are going to retrieve that book for me, or the screams you heard from the Warder will be coming from all your friends.”
Samantha glared at him, hating him and resenting that there was no way to defy his order.
“I’m going to release you. You will pass through the rings and bring me the book. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“And, do you believe me?”
She nodded resignedly.
“Abrogare,” Bhantu commanded.
Samantha nearly fell onto the floor as she regained control over her body. She glanced back at her friends. Mike looked cold and dangerous, but his eyes were full of understanding for the situation they’d put her in.
“Be prepared for anything when I get back,” she telepathically told her brave familiar. Serena subtly nodded in acknowledgement.
Andrea looked scared and perhaps on the edge of shock. Her eyes were wide with fear. “Don’t worry,” Samantha told her. “This isn’t over yet.” Andrea seemed to appreciate her words but still looked like a frightened animal.
“If you would be so kind?” Bhantu extended his arm toward the opening of the first ring.
Samantha hadn’t noticed the second ring from her position on the ground. A red ring was six inches apart from a green ring. Both had a living, breathing quality about them that unsettled her.
Swallowing hard, she looked through the first ring. There was nothing but the Grimoire across the room. Holding her breath, she slipped her foot through the first ring, expecting to come out on the other side. Instead as soon as she had completely stepped inside the circumference of the first ring, everything around her completely disappeared.
***
When the stone had smashed Darren’s hand, he hadn’t known anything could hurt so badly. He’d been sick before, and he’d hurt himself in various ways growing up, but this was something completely foreign to his understanding, and he wanted it to stop.
He knew he was screaming, but it seemed to be happening outside of himself. The blinding white pain that pierced him was so acute he thought he might lose his mind. Julander hadn’t just broken his hand; he’d crushed it. It was ruined. Somewhere in the back of Darren’s mind floated the thought that he would never play college or professional basketball.
But the pain was all there was. At first, it was the shock of the all-encompassing onset of agony. It was like jumping into ice-cold water; the moment you surface you can’t breathe, so you simply throw your limbs in front of you and do the best you can. Next came the onslaught of thoughts attempting to make sense of the brutality. But they fought against the pain that had the loudest voice in his head. Finally, he found himself trying to reason with the pain, explain how it was too much. It was beyond his ability to manage. Soon, he was certain he’d become delusional. He even thought he’d heard someone call out his name.
Later, however, pain itself took on a persona. It looked just like Julander. Darren begged for it to stop; he cried and pled his case; he promised to give him whatever was in his power to give, but to no avail. The Julander-pain-thing was merciless. With each writhing expression of hate on the thing’s face, a fresh wave of agony passed over Darren, as if the Julander image was striking him again and again with the stone.
After what seemed an impossibly long period, he was better able to collect his thoughts and tried to focus on them, drive them into a direction—any direction that was beyond the here and now where the pain was insufferable.
He pictured Samantha and the kiss they’d shared. He tried to get it to stick in his mind. It was a momentary diversion, but it was difficult to make it last long enough. He needed something bigger, more complex.
His thoughts returned to those of anger. He remembered Ethan, how he had just talked with him. It had felt so real, and Mr. Whitmore had been so convincing as his brother. The thought of Ethan being alive again was like the opposite of the pain he was now enduring. It was the purest joy. But it had never happened! There was no joy!
The depiction was too cruel. They had gone too far in doing that to him. He remembered his hate of earlier, when he’d bruised his hands as proof of his resolve to bring them down. Now those bruises were nothing compared to the conviction his new wounds had given him. Those despicable beings didn’t deserve destruction! They were evil wrapped in flesh. He now understood exactly how Atavus felt about witches. Samantha had said their evil surpassed any consideration of mercy. He should strike and not let them tell lies and twist the truth. Like his grandfather, he would never trust a witch! He would destroy them. He would be a true Pessum Ire.
Anger began to burn upward from his stomach. It gave him a fixed point on which to concentrate. These thoughts contained the complexity necessary to drive the pain from his mind.
The more he thought about destroying them, the better he felt. Exhilaration rushed throughout his whole being, increasing his heart rate and energizing his body. He’d get them. He’d burn holes through them all. Their destruction was all that remained of the universe.
The pleasant warmth that had been filling him during his mental tirade grew stronger still. He barely felt the pain at all. There must have been an amazing amount of endorphins in his system because he was feeling terrific. He bolted up right, smiling. He pulled his hands free of the paste that clung to them. Looking down at his wrists he saw that the iron manacles had melted away from him. It was pooled and dripping on the rock, steam rising from it.
After closer examination, he realized the glow he’d experienced inside had manifest itself through his hands as well. They were alight with power, glowing like incandescent bulbs so bright they left reverse images of darkness when he looked away from them. Scrutinizing his glowing hands, he wondered if he should be afraid, but there was no fear in what he saw and felt. They were his hands, and they had become tools, tools he could use to bring to pass the goals he’d set during his fevered dreams.
Another wonder as he stared at the broken and crushed hand was that it was no longer injured. It was completely repaired. He flexed it within the bright glow, and there was no pain whatsoever. It looked as if it had never been harmed. He grinned, thinking about what he must look like right now. This was it. This was the power of the Pessum Ire.
This was Warder’s Fire!
He pointed toward the chains that bound his legs and a bar of light so bright it reminded him of a welder’s torch shot out from his hand and incinerated the iron links. All that was left was black ash and a bit of gray putty that smoked and smelled like sulfur and battery acid.
Jumping up from the slab of stone, he marched over to the door and vaporized it with intense heat, the same intensity he planned on using when he engulfed this whole cavern in flames. Stepping toward the burned away door, his mind full of destruction, he suddenly dropped to his knees. This was unexpected.
How had he ended up here? His head was swimming and his vision tunneled. Next he knew, he was propped on his arms, then his head dropped to the floor. He could feel the coolness of the stones beneath his cheek. What was happening? His hands were just barely glowing, a soft shade of pink that faded to nothing as he watched. Had he used it up? Was this another spell of the witches, another game? Were they playing with his mind? Had they made him believe he’d discovered his power only to rip it away from him? Would he wake up in a minute back on the slab with Julander and the rest laughing over him?
The coolness of the stones was so inviting, and he was so tired. Just a moment’s rest on the floor was all he needed. Yes, just a moment to recharge his…what? What was he thinking about? What was going…
***
Everything had winked out. The stone room was gone, the witches and their familiars, the rings, and even the Grimoire disappeared. Instead of finding herself on the other side of the glowing rings, Samantha found herself in a cozy little sitting room with plush carpets on the floor, a cheery fire crackling in an ornately carved fireplace. The walls were tan and smooth, and outside the windows, it was a beautiful summer day—obviously not March in Utah.
In the corner by the fireplace was a rocker and sitting in it an old man wearing curious black robes trimmed in sliver. He was bald with a sharp gray beard pointing off his chin. Wrinkles creased his eyes, but there was a twinkle in them which off-set his obvious age.
Placing a finger in the spot where he’d been reading, the old man looked up from the large ratty book, pulled his glasses down, and squinted over them at her.
“Ah,” he breathed quietly. “That took a long time.”
***
“Where’d she go?” Julander looked through the rings, but saw only the unreachable book on the other side of the room.
“Hmm,” considered Bhantu. “I wonder.”
“You wonder what?” Ms. Vanderhoff asked, looking from students to warlocks. “You know something?”
“Not necessarily, but I do suspect something. I want each of you to prepare to suck the air out of the cocoons they’re being held in.” He motioned to the bound students. “When she returns with the Grimoire, there could be trouble. We need to be ready to react. With lives on the line, she’ll be slower to make her move, and we may need that advantage.”
***
“Where am I? And, who are you?” Samantha spluttered.
“Quite a shock not to find yourself on the other side of those rings I imagine. Sorry about that, but I have my own way of doing things.” He shut the book and set it on a table in the center of the rug. He waved his hand over the table, and a tea set appeared.
“An ex-nihilo spell,” he explained. “Which is a misnomer, but either way, you probably don’t know what I’m going on about. So much magic has been lost through the ages.” He motioned for her to sit, but there was no chair where he indicated. “Sit,” he said.
When Samantha looked again, a chair was there. She sat down and gazed across the table at him.
“Ex-nihilo,” he explained. “Something out of nothing. Even back in my day, some of the greatest professors of religion believed God created the world and the heavens that way: ex-nihilo.” He poured the tea into cups and chuckled. “Knowledge is perhaps more slippery than magic.”
Samantha reached forward and took her cup of tea, as did the old man.
“Curious who I am?”
Over her cup she looked back at him. “Moloch.”
He grinned back at her. “Very good, Sahwin.” The twinkle in his eyes as he revealed he knew her name made Samantha instantly like this old sorcerer.
“Do you like it?” he asked, referring to the tea.
“Yes,” she replied. “It’s actually quite good. What is it?”
“I don’t think the weed exists anymore. We used to call it Tchoclo. It brews with that naturally sweet taste right out of the leaves.”
“Moloch, how are you still alive?” Samantha couldn’t help but ask.
“Alive?” He smiled back at her question. “Well, that’s an interesting turn of phrase for what I am. Perhaps you’re right. It’s hard to fathom any longer. In any case, you should have a good idea how I did it if anyone does.”
“A Catadromus?”
“A form of a Catadromus, yes. So much has been lost, as I said. There are many types of spells. I exist in a state of Catadromy, which is a fancy way of saying I’m alive for as long as I choose to be—on the condition I never leave the parallel confines of this universe I’ve created.”
“Meaning this room?”
“I do indeed. Imagine life in prison, with no parole, and you never die. It changes your idea of cruel and unusual punishment, doesn’t it?” He grabbed a biscuit from the table and started munching on it. “But, it isn’t precisely a prison either. I’ve been pulling on the threads of life outside this cavern for centuries now. It is definitely time for it to come to an end.” He smiled wistfully over his cup at her.
“Perhaps I should explain. To begin with, the time you spend in here will take very little time on the outside, perhaps a minute, and that’s if I talk slowly. Another thing you should know is that, the Grimoire is not on the other side of the room through those rings. No.” He reached down and picked up the old volume he’d been reading. “It’s right here.”
“Does it truly contain all the missing spells since the Great Deluge?”
“Oh, yes, it’s quite complete. It would be most dangerous in the wrong hands and probably most dangerous in the right hands as well. The most frightful thing about the Grimoire is that it contains one fifth of the Licentia Infectus, the Freedom of the Soul Spell. The complete spell has never been recorded anywhere and has never been possessed by anyone ever. Even before the Deluge, no warlock ever knew the entire spell. Baal has sought it through demons and warlocks. He would have had it too, stripped mankind of its agency and marched every soul down to hell, but the Lord flooded the earth and destroyed any chance of it happening. Only one warlock survived…but that’s another story.”
He leaned back in his chair. “It occurs to me that history is another thing that goes missing. It’s been my experience that when it comes to history, most men are either too apathetic to learn from it, or their sources are too corrupt for them to learn from it. Either way…” He shrugged and looked heavenward.
“We don’t have time for me to give you the entire history of where our kind came from. Suffice it to say that the one called Cain, who slew his brother, made certain deals with Baal that begat the first warlock. From there is an interesting history of who the Nephilim really are and how our kind survived the Great Deluge. But, if you travel to the far end of the cavern, you should find a library. I’ve left the history there for you.”
“I’ve already been there,” Samantha said. “But, I don’t know any of the ancient tongues.”
“Well of course not,” the old man smiled. “They were written in antediluvian languages. But, if you use a summoning spell and request the calculate perceptium, a flat glass eye-piece about the size of an orange should leave its hiding place and come to you. You can use that like the ancients used the Urim to translate languages.”
He sipped his tea until it was gone. He looked at her as if to offer her more. She declined with a small shake of her head.
“There is a one-use spell I have prepared for you. It will only work for you one time. Use it when you have no other choice. Utter the words, ‘Necare obinixe’. Remember it, and use it only when you are in the greatest peril.”
“Is it a death curse?”
The old man simply looked down at the ground. At length he asked, “I feel our interview must soon come to a close.”
“So soon? I have so many questions,” she exclaimed.
“I am sorry child, but I feel time pulling at you. Let me see what I can offer before you go.” He stood and looked upward, raising his hands. Closing his eyes, he began to speak, and Samantha could tell he had invoked some sort of ancient magic:
“Beware the dangers that await you on the other side.
The look of fear a dangerous heart doth hide.
Burning anguish lies beyond and one will die.
Keep the Warder close for there your futures lies.”
He shook his head, and his eyes focused back on her. The large ornate book shook in his hands as he handed it to her. “Be wise with this,” he cautioned. “The return of this book to the world of men is the beginning of the end.” He walked her toward the wall she’d passed through minutes ago. “I don’t know what was said during the prophecy spell, but heed any warnings you were given.”
Samantha could feel herself being tugged back into the room beyond the wall.
Moloch’s eyes suddenly opened wide as he seemed to remember something. “Beware of the…” His voice disappeared as she was sucked back into the stone chamber where the warlocks and witch stood warily on their guard.
The first thing she noticed were the purple gasping faces of her friends struggling to breathe.
“Hand it over!” demanded Bhantu, reaching for the book.
Samantha hesitated and drew the Grimoire back.
“Do you want them to die?” he snarled.
She looked at her desperate friends, their eyes streaming and their tongues protruding from their mouths.
Think, she told herself. Think! But in the face of their suffering, she was powerless. The warlock was going to win. If he didn’t have that charm, she’d destroy him with the death spell, but it would only result in her killing herself. As it was, there was nothing she could do but reluctantly hand the book over to the leader of the Northern Coven.
The well-dressed man’s hands actually trembled as he received the ancient tome.
***
Darren woke up feeling confused. How had he ended up on the ground?
He shook his head against the dizziness buzzing about inside it. Something inside was pressing him, telling him time was important, that he needed to be up and moving; if he failed to get somewhere, there would be horrible consequences.
Using the wall for support, he struggled to his feet. A wave of dizziness hit him again, and he was afraid he might collapse. After a moment, however, his head cleared. Using his power apparently came with a price. Stumbling forward he made his way through the gigantic hole he’d burned through the door. He looked down the corridor, to the left and then to the right. Which way should he go?
He quickly decided to head left simply because he thought the hall extended farther in that direction. Much weaker than he would have supposed, he hugged the wall as he shuffled along. As he approached each doorway, he glanced quickly through the barred windows. Many of the rooms were empty, and when he ran across these, he simply pushed himself on to the next. Others contained various strange objects, but no sign of witches or his friends.
After what he felt was an extremely long time searching rooms, a sour smell of decay and rot assaulted his nose. It was not simply decomposition he smelled, but the bitter tang of bile and partially digested meat. He looked down the corridor and saw it changed color. The gray stone of the cavern abruptly turned to an unsightly yellow-green.
He skipped a few doors and tottered forward toward the grotesque scene before him. The slime coated the walls and covered the floor. And the smell forced him to breathe through his mouth to avoid gagging. Each difficult step he took required that he place his foot into the muck and then pull it out of a temporary vacuum of sludge that popped as each foot broke free. He leaned against the wall for support, concentrating against gagging, and forced one foot in front of the other. He continued to glance through the doors, and finding nothing, he lurched onward.
Pausing to catch his breath, he inhaled deeply, telling himself he would not slide to the floor and take a nap. This yellow, mustard goop was repulsive. He looked forward, a bit dazed, when he realized he was staring at something in the middle of the hallway. It was something he recognized, though not in its current incarnation. It was a jacket, but one that was translucent like Samantha had been during the basketball game.
He knew that jacket; it was Mike’s. His best friend must have lost it in this disgusting nightmare in an attempt to rescue Darren. It was see-through because Samantha had put them all under a blind-man’s spell. But, if they were trying to rescue him, where were they? What if Mike hadn’t taken the jacket off willingly, but it had been torn from him?
Suddenly, something occurred to him. Julander, the sadistic, corpulent warlock, had been wearing goggles. And those goggles somehow allowed him to see through the blind-man spell. If he hadn’t been so frightened at the time, he might have put this together sooner.
The squishing sound he made as he walked over to Mike’s jacket was revolting. Fortunately, the jacket was in one piece, no apparent damage, rips or tears. If he put on the jacket, would his upper torso disappear? The thing was so coated in the foul slime of the hallway Darren decided against it.
Something else took his mind off of it in any case. Inside an interior pocket of Mike’s jacket were some folded pages. Unlike the jacket, they were not translucent. He pulled them out and recognized them immediately. They were the pages of Ethan’s diary Darren had put under his mattress on the day of the funeral. He’d only read the first page that day, thinking he’d read the rest later. But he’d totally forgotten about them.
Apparently Atavus had been correct about them being “spell-proof,” because when Mike had been put under the blind-man spell, the journal pages remained visible. But how had they ended up in Mike’s pocket?
Perhaps Ethan had left him a message in there, some information about how to use the Warder Fire. But that no longer seemed to be important; he knew how to use it now, how to summon it and send it out. Nevertheless, he scanned the pages quickly, trying to catch a word or two that might indicate something that would be helpful. The last page stuck to another page, like they had gotten wet and dried together. Darren could feel something between them. He might ruin the pages if he tore or yanked at them, so he gently pulled at the edges until he had separated two small flaps. Using these, he tore them apart slowly, assuring the integrity of each page stayed intact. The last page slowly became visible, but there wasn’t much written on it. There were some doodles, some boxes and lines, and the shape of a heart.
A heart?
Darren continued to pull until he’d completely freed the two pages. There, in the center of the last page near the bottom, was a color picture that had been glued in place. It was of Ethan back when he was in college. He was on a basketball court, wearing gym clothes, a little sweaty but smiling, holding a ball in his left hand. People were moving about in the background as if the game had ended and they were heading home. To the right of the picture was a cute brunette Ethan had his right arm around. Darren knew she must be Rachel, the girl Ethan had referred to on an earlier page of his journal.
But what almost caused Darren to blackout was that the cute brunette his brother had his arm around was someone he knew; someone he knew very well. He was staring down at a picture of Andrea! Same size, same hairstyle, same smile, and those same amazing eyes. It was Andrea. There was no doubt about it.
What was she doing in a picture with Ethan, and why was she using the name Rachel? Of course, Darren knew the answers to his own questions. It was painfully obvious and hit him almost as hard as finding out he hadn’t discovered his brother alive a few hours ago. The gravelly voice of Julander echoed in his mind: “How were we to know that Endor had called up a demon who told her she would be destroyed by the Key? Or that she would use the same spell powder and throw the thirteen-year-old child into the Catadromus for a second time? That she would then give birth to another child, one as evil as herself?”
It was another trick, another cruel and vicious stunt. Ethan was not back from the grave and Andrea, the girl he’d been dating for nearly eighteen months, was a witch. And not just another witch, but Samantha’s sister.
***
Once Bhantu had the book in his hands, he signaled for the others to release their captives. The students slumped against the wall, free of their cocoons, sucking at the air like they had just had their heads underwater. Samantha ran over to them, anxiously checking on their conditions.
Bhantu took the ancient book to a wooden table in the corner, his coven members following him, no longer concerned about their captives. He sat down and gently ran his hand across the cover in which the Signum Infectus (three overlaid 6’s with a cross and dot in the center) was engraved in each corner. It was dyed dark maroon with panels in relief depicting different scenes: one of a man with a sword, fighting a dragon; another of a vampire with a stake through its heart; down one side, a storm broke limbs from trees. On the other side was an image of an ancient sorcerer, probably Moloch, wearing his dark robe, his hands out before him casting a spell. To the side was a three-tiered image of a man changing, drawing by drawing, from a man into a lizard. Interspersed among the images were ghastly drawings of ghosts or souls in eternal agony. Along the bottom, the creepiest of the drawings were sketched, the patterns of death, the secret forms used by witches throughout the ages to call forth demons and control them while upon the earth.
“It’s magnificent,” Bhantu said reverently. He opened the book slowly, his cohorts leaning over him. He turned each leaf carefully, fascinated by each ornate, illustrated page.
To the side, out of mind for the moment, Serena sent a thought to Samantha. “Where did you go? You disappeared once you went through the first ring.”
“Long story,” she replied. “I met Moloch who gave me the Grimoire and a death spell.”
“Use it!” Serena implored.
“Remember the reflective charm? I’d just end up killing myself.”
“Right. What do we do?”
“Hey,” Mike gasped. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” Samantha said. “Can everybody move?”
They nodded at her.
“Andrea, I know you didn’t sign up for this, but you’ve been extremely brave throughout all of this. I promised you this wasn’t over yet. And it’s not.”
Andrea nodded but didn’t appear particularly relieved.
“Yes,” Bhantu was saying, and the group responded approvingly, “Quantric Transference.”
Ms. Vanderhoff looked over at the conspiring students and tapped Julander on the shoulder. He looked back at them and grinned malevolently. He spoke to Bhantu. “Find a spell that’s particularly painful. We need to deal with our friends against the wall.”
Bantu chuckled. “Yes, I almost forgot they were there.” He flipped through the pages. “Here we go, Belly Fire. That sounds promising. Belly Fire sound painful enough for you?” He hit Julander on the shoulder.
Julander merely glanced back at the students and smirked. A bloated jackal gawking at raw meat would have been less menacing.
Bhantu stood suddenly, knocking his chair over. He pointed at the students and roared, “Aqualiculus incendia!”
Instantly their stomach muscles clenched in spasms of pain. The feeling of liquid nitrogen flashed through their abdomens, igniting into a heat so intense they were convinced their organs and blood had burst into flame. Coughing and vomiting, they could only scream and claw for air in consequence of the spell. They writhed uncontrollably on the ground, crying out in their minds for it to stop. They would’ve taken death as an acceptable means of escape.
Bhantu lifted his arm to cast a silence spell on the howling human-coals, but Julander pushed his arm down.
“Give it just a few more seconds.” He licked his thick lips, and his expression resembled that of a Tibetan monk who has reached a high level of peace and contentment.
***
Darren made it around a turn at the end of the cavern. In the perpendicular hallway, he saw the white marble stairs that led up and probably out of this underground maze. The walls were no longer caked with mustard colored slime and the fetid smell of rancid beef. It was a relief to breathe air bathed by a cool inviting breeze wafting down from above.
He was tempted to go up and out but knew it would be wrong, not to mention cowardly. He had to keep going. He headed down another corridor. It led back the other way in a parallel direction to the original tunnel. Apprehension gnawed inside him, and he knew if he didn’t hurry, he’d be too late. He jogged forward with his right hand, brushing against the stone wall.
In one of the rooms up ahead, Darren could hear voices—at last. But it was at this same moment that little black speckles began closing in from the outside of his field of vision. His legs were weak, and he realized he was about to pass out. He closed his eyes, fought it back, and pushed on toward the doorway. He could hear Julander asking someone to give it a few more seconds and in the distance, like a radio turned to low volume, the shrieks and howls of people in pain.
Blinking back the weakness invading his body, he staggered to the open doorway. Grabbing the sides for support, he looked in. Straight ahead were two colorful glowing rings that led to the far side of the room where a book sat on a short pillar. To his left he saw the transparent forms of his friends on the ground, writhing about in agony, their mouths open, howling in excruciating pain.
To his right, five adults gathered around a table. Four he recognized, Coach Hawthorne, whom he was saddened to discover was a warlock, along with Mr. Whitmore, Ms Vanderhoff, and Julander. They were gathered round a man in a suit, whom Darren didn’t recognize but knew must be their leader. On the ground, a variety of animals moved about nervously, getting under foot. He recognized these as their familiars in their animal forms.
The warlocks looked up at him in shock, obviously not having expected to see him ever again on his feet. As he brought his arm up, their shock turned to terror. He summoned as much strength as he could and aimed at the man in the suit. The light that shot forth wasn’t as bright or as powerful as the fire he’d produced earlier in his cell, but it caught the well-dressed man in the throat. Flames shot up from where the light landed, and soon the man’s head was engulfed in flames.
The others fled the burning man who grabbed the book from the table and staggered forward several steps before falling to the ground, giving way to the conflagration that now raged up and down his entire body. The book tumbled beyond him and landed open at Darren’s feet.
Darren’s vision tunneled in on him, but he spotted Julander and shot a meager ray at him. His beam of light flashed high and to the left, grazing the fat man’s ear, which started to smoke, and scorching a black scar into the stones of the ceiling.
Blinking furiously, Darren witnessed Julander mutter something and step forward, but instead of moving across the room, his foot, followed by the rest of his body, stepped out of existence. One moment he was there, the next he was gone.
What had happened?
Falling to his knees, Darren saw Coach Hawthorne, Ms. Vanderhoff, and Mr. Whitmore duplicate the move, each one stepping into nothingness and winking out of existence.
For the second time this night, Darren lay on a stone floor, looking across a room. His friends lay sprawled on the ground, still looking like spirits. His last thought was that there must have been two Grimoires, the one at the far end of the room and the one that sat open just inches away from his head. That was convenient; they wouldn’t have to make copies.