Grim Rites (3 page)

S
itting
on the edge of the bed, I listened to the sound of water as it switched off. He was pissed at me, and how could I blame him? I’d accused him of being something that had gone down in history as truly horrendous. The witch hunters’ reputations had certainly preceded them, their acts so heinous that they’d been wiped from the history books. Those who’d been affected—witches from my mother’s line being one such instance—had never forgotten, the stories passed down from generation to generation.

So what the hell had his brother been doing leaving witch hunter symbols in the bathroom? It wasn’t the sort of thing you could get yourself into. Witch hunters were born, not made, especially the sort who could create symbology with as much of a kick as the one in the medicine cabinet.

Glancing down at my finger, I noticed the small blister that had formed on the tip—the tip I’d touched the mark with. If simply touching the mark could do that much damage, then what would happen if I ran into the maker of said mark?

It didn’t bear thinking about and I closed my eyes as the bathroom door down the hall swung open. Nic strode out into the hall. The sight of him in his combat boots while wrapped in only a towel brought a small smile to my lips. He caught my gaze and glared at me before disappearing into the living area.

Whatever little trust we’d been building, I’d definitely damaged it. But how could he blame me?

He doesn’t understand,
the small voice in the back of my mind piped up, and for once I didn’t instantly dismiss it. It was true—he didn’t understand, how could he? He knew as much as the rest of the world about the true history between the witch hunters and the Shadow Sorcerers.

I’d heard the stories from my mother, but what I’d witnessed in the bathroom from simply touching the symbol—that was something else. I’d felt the bubble of my flesh, the feel of the red hot poker as they’d pushed it into places that should never be abused. The rush of water as it filled my lungs and I fought against the iron bands wrapped around my body. I’d touched the mark for only a second, but I’d experienced the torture of a multitude of souls.

Grabbing my clothes, I quickly dragged them on, wrapping my hair up into a knot that I secured with an elastic. I pushed my feet into my boots and crunched down the hall over the broken glass. After what had happened, there was no quiet way to move around.

Pausing in the doorway, I scanned my surroundings; the living room was bare, apart from a battered brown leather couch and a huge wide screen television. Littering the floor in front of it, I could see at least two different game consoles and plastic game boxes. Across the room, near the largest window in the apartment, sat a dining room table, its surface covered in books. Without exploring further, I crossed the room and paused in front of the table.

The books were old, their pages yellowed and stiff with age. Many of the inscriptions I couldn’t read, due to them being in some language I definitely didn’t speak. Nic could speak more than one language? It didn’t seem utterly unlikely and, well, I’d never bothered to ask him if he could or not.

Come to think of it, there were a whole lot of things I didn’t know about him. A whole lot of things I was going to have to find out, especially if his brother had been a witch hunter.

“Find something else you’d like to accuse me of?” he asked, making me jump. I spun around to face him. He’d gotten dressed, his hair still wet and slicked back away from his face.

“Can you read all of this?” I asked, picking up one text that had particularly caught my eye. There was something about it, something so very familiar, but I had no idea why it should be. As far as I was aware, I’d never seen it before in my life.

“Some of it I’ve got a working knowledge on, the rest I use dictionaries for, and if it’s a language I just don’t recognise then I take it to someone who can.”

“Like who?” I said, running my finger down across the writing on the page. The symbol that sat in the centre drew me in, enticing me to….

Nic’s hands closed over mine and he snapped the book shut. “Maybe spending too much time with this stuff isn’t such a good idea for you.”

“Why not? What are they?”

“I found them in my brother’s stuff after he … well, you know what happened to him.”

I did know what happened to him; he’d been killed, but now I had an inclination that it might have been more than Nic thought. If his brother had been a true witch hunter—and, judging by the symbol on the wall in the bathroom, he definitely had been—then there was more to his brother’s death than just simply getting caught out by a rogue shifter pack.

“Nic, how much did you know about your brother?”

“He wasn’t a witch hunter, Amber, can we please just drop this now?”

He sounded tired, almost weary, as though this wasn’t the first time he’d had this argument—but then, if that were true, who had he spoken to about all of this before?

“Actually, no, I don’t think I can drop it….”

He lifted his gaze to mine and the disappointment in his eyes surprised me; it was the last thing I’d been expecting to see. Anger, resentment, sorrow even, but not disappointment.

“Look, even after everything that happened out there tonight, I didn’t question you. I didn’t ask you to explain it to me; I trusted you. Can’t you just do the same thing for me?”

“Nic, with everything I know, I can’t. I get it. You don’t understand how dangerous the witch hunters were, but….”

“Enough, I know what the Saga Venatione were. You don’t need to explain it to me. Just because I can’t see what you can doesn’t mean I haven’t done my share of research.”

His words shocked me. The witches never dared call them by the name he’d just used. Call it silly superstition, but they’d always believed that to use their true name would be enough to bring their wrath down on your home.

I took a step away, my back connecting with the dining table behind me, and I peered over my shoulder at the piles of books.

“They belong to the….”

“The Saga Venatione? Yes.”

“And you’re telling me you found all of this with your brother’s stuff, and he wasn’t one of them? You really expect me to believe that?”

“He was born to it, but he wasn’t one of them, Amber. My brother was a good guy. We had our ups and downs, but he wasn’t like the savages I’ve read about.”

I shook my head and crept along the edge of the table, slowly sliding out of reach. I’d put so much trust in Nic—part of me had even believed I was starting to fall for him—when all along, he was a witch hunter? He’d said he wasn’t, but how was I supposed to believe that after everything he’d revealed?

“So what are you doing with all this stuff then?” The book in Nic’s hand continued to call to me in a language I couldn’t comprehend. It seemed the further away from it I went, the more insistent it was that I return and pick it up once more.

“When I found out what you were, and with the demon mark, I thought maybe there would be something in one of these books that could help.”

I didn’t speak aloud the thoughts swirling in my head. The only one something out of these books would help would be another witch hunter. I was simply the target that needed to be destroyed by any means necessary. But from the expression on Nic’s face and the earnestness in his voice, he actually believed what he was telling me. He really thought something like this could help me….

“That book you’re holding—what is it?” I asked, pointing to the leather-bound tome still in his hands.

“This? I’m not sure. I’ve been trying to translate it, but it’s hard going. Every time I start, all I want to do is fall asleep.”

I nodded; he didn’t even realise what he was holding in his hands. He wasn’t supposed to translate it; no witch hunter was, especially if it truly was a grimoire, and judging by the yellowing of its pages, it was really old….

I sighed, and closed the distance between us, my hands wrapping around the book. I tugged at it, but Nic kept a grip on it.

“What are you doing? I’ve heard the books can be … unhealthy for witches.”

“They can, but this doesn’t belong to you,” I said, putting a little weight behind my words.

The book slipped from Nic’s grip, popping into mine. He stared at me, stunned, and I gestured to the other books on the table. “Will you clear a space? I don’t want to risk touching the others.”

His expression was wary as he cleared away some of the books, leaving a small end section of the table free. Grabbing one of the chairs, I tugged it out from beneath the table and plopped down into it, laying the book out before me and cracking it open to the first page.

The page was curled and marked; along the edges I could see scorch marks. Obviously before they’d decided it might be useful, they’d tried to burn it. Or maybe it was just that they couldn’t destroy it—nothing was impossible.

Nic dropped into the seat next to me as I slipped my athame out from my belt. Pressing the tip of it to my finger, I pierced the skin and squeezed until the blood began to well. Blood trickled down the side of my finger and dripped onto the page.

“Amber, what are you doing? Do you know how old that book is?” Nic said.

I ignored him, allowing the blood to flow faster and drip down onto the page. Magic rustled across my skin like a summer breeze, nothing more than a gentle caress, but it held the promise of so much more. Nic fell silent and I knew he’d felt it too. The drops of blood soaked into the book, disappearing into the aged paper as though the book itself was drinking it.

Something popped and energy flowed outwards like the shock wave after an EMT. I gasped, dropping back into the chair as black lines ran outwards in spiralling circles from the point of contact my blood had made.

The power dropped and I held my hand just above the surface of the book as it pulsed and throbbed. A name appeared, the words written in a dark, rusty ink that I knew instinctively was blood.

Brigid Dubhacht

“Who is that?” Nic asked, leaning over the table to get a closer look at the writing.

“It’s her name,” I said, remembering a story my mother had told me of the Shadow Sorcerers of old who had originated in Ireland, their magic as old as the land itself and far more powerful than anyone could have ever imagined. They’d drawn the source of their magic from the earth, using it to bend others to their will and rule with an iron fist.

Brigid Dubhacht had been one of the first, I was almost certain of it.

Flipping the page, the letters shifted, forming words and then sentences in a language I couldn’t read.

“What does it say?”

I shook my head and squinted down at the page, unable to figure out the meaning of the scrawling letters and what I assumed were words.

“I don’t know. It’s written in Irish, a really old form of it; the words don’t even make sense to me,” I said, disappointment welling in my core. “Where did your brother get this?”

Nic shrugged. “I don’t know. It wasn’t really something I could ask him about.”

“Well, this doesn’t belong to him; this doesn’t belong to any witch hunter,” I said, running my fingers down over the foreign words. I’d learned a little Irish in school, but I was pretty sure that no amount of honours Gaeilge was going to make this readable.

“I can see that,” Nic said. I turned, his gaze weighing heavily on me. “Amber, I….”

He paused as the shrill ring of my cell phone cut him off mid-sentence. Without hesitating, I scooped it from my pocket and answered the call.

“Hello?” I said, my gaze never leaving Nic’s serious expression.

“I did what you wanted, he’s awake. Now I hope you’ve got what I want?” Lily said impatiently, and her voice sent a frisson of fear down my spine.

“I have it….” I couldn’t commit to giving her the Bone Blade; I had no idea myself what it was even capable of. But I’d seen what Zeck could do with it, and the thought of handing over something as powerful as that to someone like Lily—well, it felt like the worst idea in the world.

“Is that hesitation I hear in your voice, Amber? Because I’d hate to pay Graham another visit….”

“Look, I said I’ve got it, but I need to know what you’re going to do with it. You can’t just expect me to hand it over without some sort of—”

She cut me off. “I don’t owe you an explanation; suffice to say you’ll bring me the blade or Graham is dead.”

She was right, I couldn’t say no to her. Lily wanted the blade, and by saving Graham, she’d put me in a corner. If there was anyone on this earth with the power to end Graham’s life, it was she. How could I risk him like that?

“Where?” I said, with a sigh.

“I’ll come to you. It’ll stop you from wasting my time.”

“I’m not at my apartment,” I said, “and anyway, I need time. I need to go and see Graham for myself. I need to see him with my own eyes to be sure you’ve really kept your word.”

“Always so distrustful….”

“Dealing with you, I have to be. You did try to kill me and those I care about.”

“Only because you killed my father,” she said, the bitterness in her voice creating an ache in my gut. But the pain was caused by guilt, my own guilt. I’d brought all of this down on myself, all because I’d been a spoilt child who wanted her own way.

“I’ll give you until tonight. If you don’t hand the blade over by then, Graham is dead.”

The line went dead and I stared down at the screen for a minute before sucking in a deep breath and slowly letting the tension slide out of my shoulders.

“Lily?” Nic asked, his expression wary and closed, as though he was too afraid of my reaction to let me see his true feelings on the subject.

“Yeah, she wants to meet, have me hand over the Bone Blade, the one Zeck used.”

“You can’t seriously be thinking about handing it over to her, can you?”

“I don’t have a choice; she brought Graham back from the brink. She’s the only reason he’s alive right now, and if I don’t hand it over to her, he won’t stay alive.”

Nic dropped his head and buried his face in his hands. “Christ, it just gets more and more complicated.”

“Tell me about it….”