Modern Sorcery: A Jonathan Shade Novel (14 page)

Ravenwood’s spirit stood there, smiling.
 
He looked at me then at Kelly.
 
I tried to make sure I stared directly at Margie on the floor in case he hadn’t realized I could actually see him.
 
He looked at me for a moment then turned toward the door.

Esther rushed over and tried to grab him but hit the end of her fifteen-foot limit.
 
“You’re not going anywhere,” she said.
 
“Try and take my Jonathan for a ride, and I’ll wring your neck for real.”

Ravenwood stared at her as she strained to reach him.
 
“Interesting,” he said.
 
He looked back at me.
 
I tried to avert my eyes, but he caught me.
 
“I was right.
 
You
can
see me.”

I ignored the chaos of the women rushing to Margie’s side and screeching about someone calling 911.
 
As far as I was concerned, there were only two of us in the room: Ravenwood and myself.

I nodded.
 
“I can see you.”

“They were wrong about you,” he said.
 
“You don’t seem to have any magic, but you have a ghost, which suggests you’re a necromancer.
 
You have a Sekutar for a bodyguard, which suggests a wizard or sorcerer of great strength.
 
Yet you didn’t even notice me trying to enter you during the demonstration.
 
You’re an enigma.
 
Very interesting.”

“I’ll show you interesting,” I said.

“Another time, perhaps.
 
It’s my turn.”
 
He looked at the people in the dojo.
 
Then he pointed at Kelly’s students.
 
Every single one of them stiffened then dropped to the floor.

“What the fuck?” Kelly said.

“Check them,” Ravenwood said.
 
“I’ll wait.”

I rushed to the first woman and checked her pulse.
 
She was dead.
 
“The others?” I asked.

Kelly and Naomi checked pulses.
 
The students were all dead.
 
Ravenwood had simply pointed to them and they died.

“What’s going on, Jonathan?” Kelly asked.

“Is it Ravenwood?” Naomi asked.

“I want you to think about something,” Ravenwood said.

I stood and turned to face him.
 
“They were innocent women!”

He waved the thought away with the flick of a wrist.
 
“I did that without a body to channel my energy.
 
Take this as a warning.”

“You killed them!”

“They were mere humans.”
 
He approached me and stared into my eyes.
 
“You and your friends are only alive because I may have a use for you.”

Ravenwood walked toward the exit, but to get there he entered Esther’s reach.
 
She tried to grab him.
 
He slapped her hard across the face, and she fell to the floor, stunned.

He looked back at me, waved, and walked out the door.

I’d never seen anything make contact with Esther.
 
I rushed to her.
 
“Are you all right?”

She held a hand to her face and looked as surprised as I.
 
“It hurts.”

“But you’re not alive.
 
How can you feel pain?”

“I don’t know but I’m not making it up.”
 
She moved her hand, and I could see a red handprint on her cheek.

“Wow, he left a mark.”

“What?” Esther said.
 
“Is it bad?”

Even ghosts are vain.

I heard sirens in the distance and realized that someone must have called 911 before Ravenwood killed her.
 
I sat down next to Esther and sighed.

“The coppers are coming,” Esther said.

I nodded.

“What are you going to tell them?”

I looked at the corpses of the women and saw Kelly rise and stare at me.
 
I turned back to Esther.
 
“I don’t know.”

But the sirens went past the dojo.
 
They must have been on a call to somewhere else.
 
I felt relieved by that, but that felt wrong because Ravenwood had just killed twelve women without blinking an eye.
 
I felt like a total scumbag to find relief there.
 
That didn’t help the women he killed.

Kelly walked over and pulled me aside.
 
“Those were good women,” Kelly said.

“I’m sorry.
 
He just pointed at them and they died.”

Kelly closed her eyes.
 
“We let them down, Jonathan.
 
I
let them down.”

“Kelly—”

“Don’t.
 
We’re supposed to protect those who can’t protect themselves.
 
That’s one of the things you taught me.”

I nodded.
 
I thought I might be sick.

“We failed,” she said.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Kelly frowned at me.
 
“Why did Ravenwood kill them all?”

“I don’t know.”

Naomi placed a hand on my shoulder.
 
“With Margie, it was the safest exit he had at hand.
 
With the others, it was a demonstration.”

“Something you want to tell us?”

Naomi shrugged.
 
“Ravenwood can possess anyone he wants.
 
Well, except for you, Jonathan.
 
To transfer to another host body, he needs physical contact.
 
You saved me by pushing me back.
 
He tried to get into Kelly, but she was too fast.
 
You, as always, are immune to direct magic.
 
If he can’t transfer, he simply kills the host to set his spirit free.
 
Since he couldn’t possess you, he wasn’t going to take any chances that you would trap him in Margie’s body.
 
So he killed her.”

Kelly walked over to the bench and sat down.

“You okay, Kelly?” I asked.

“No.”
 
Kelly ran a hand through her hair.
 
“It’s my fault that she’s dead.
 
It’s my fault that they’re all dead.”

I shook my head.
 
“This is Ravenwood’s fault.
 
He’s the one who murdered them.”

“Margie didn’t even want to come here,” Kelly said.
 
“It was out of her way.”

“You talked her into it,” I said.

Kelly nodded.
 
“I met her at a battered women’s shelter.
 
She was so timid and skittish.
 
I felt that I could help her, build her confidence, teach her to defend herself.
 
If I’d left her alone, she’d still be alive.
 
Hell, they’d all still be alive.”

“You couldn’t know this would happen,” Naomi said.

“Actions have consequences,” Kelly said.
 
“I accept that.
 
But I also accept responsibility for my students’ deaths.
 
If I wanted to pass the blame around, I could lay the whole thing on you, Naomi.
 
If you hadn’t come back into Jonathan’s life, none of this would have happened.”

“Let’s not do this,” I said.
 
“I’m sorry about Margie and the others.”

Kelly stood and kissed me on the cheek.
 
“I know you are.
 
But Naomi is still holding out on us.”
 
She turned and glared at Naomi.
 
“Aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know how Ravenwood transfers.
 
You played dumb when Cantrell brought him up at the restaurant, but you knew Ravenwood was involved.
 
That’s
why you hired Jonathan.”

“Oh, come on,” Naomi said.

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

“I know you’re upset, but remember that Ravenwood possessed my father and killed my mother.”

“Well there you go, Naomi.
 
You hired Jonathan to prove that your father was innocent.
 
I think we’ve established that.”

“And?”

“And nothing,” Kelly said.
 
“Your father is innocent.
 
Case closed.
 
Go away.”

“I can’t do that.
 
My father’s name has not been cleared.”

“The body count isn’t high enough for you yet?”

“It’s not like that.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” I said.

“No,” Kelly said.
 
“I have a theory.
 
I think Naomi knew Ravenwood was loose before she ever hired you.”
 
She turned to Naomi.
 
“Care to deny it?”

Naomi didn’t say anything.

“And there you go,” Kelly said.
 
“The truth is in the silence.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“You going to admit it?” Kelly asked.

Naomi nodded.
 
“Fine, I knew Ravenwood was loose.
 
I was there when he got free, but he still has to be stopped.”

I closed my eyes.
 
“You were there?”
 
I opened them and stared at her.

“Yes.
 
My father brought the three crystals together, thinking that—”

“He did
what?
” Kelly said.
 
“Was he really that stupid?”

“He thought that with my help and the help of the two custodians who protected the other crystals that we could control him.
 
Unfortunately Ravenwood killed the other two wizards and possessed my father.
 
I wasn’t actually in the room, so I was able to get away.”

“This all happened without Al knowing anything about it?” I asked.

“Anselma approved the project.
 
We had the three crystals in the same room for weeks with no problem.
 
My father and the other custodians ran test after test, and there didn’t seem to be any danger.
 
They had three Sekutar warriors guarding the room just in case.”

“Three?” Kelly asked.

Naomi sighed.
 
“DGI secretly kept at least seven warriors alive.”

“Including me?”

“You’d be number eight, but DGI didn’t keep you alive.
 
Jonathan did.
 
DGI wanted you destroyed, but my father talked them out of it.
 
He figured if he could get them to spare you, it would make it easier for them to keep sparing the other warriors too.”

Kelly grabbed Naomi by the throat.
 
“I ought to kill you,” she said.
 
“You’re a lying sack of shit.”

“Calm down, Kelly,” I said.
 
Kelly and I knew that the rest of the original Sekutar were dead because we’d been there when they were destroyed and had barely escaped with our lives.
 
Naomi might not know that the program had been reinstated.
 
It wasn’t important either way.
 
We all knew there were more warriors.
 
First generation or second wasn’t really a factor.

“She was in on it from the start,” Kelly said.
 
“Just like I told you.
 
She’s using you like she did before.
 
Only this time, the cost in lives is greater.”

“I hired Jonathan because I knew he’d be safe from Ravenwood,” Naomi said, her voice coming out choked by Kelly’s grip.
 
“And since Ravenwood knows whatever the people he possessed know, I was hoping some of my father’s fear of Jonathan would rub off.”

“Your father was afraid of me?” I asked.
 
That surprised me.

“You couldn’t be controlled.
 
That scared him.
 
I never told him about you being impervious to magic.
 
And now you’re our best hope of stopping Ravenwood.”

“Kelly, let her go.”

“I don’t take orders from you, Jonathan.”

“It wasn’t an order.
 
I just think we can discuss this like civilized people.”

“She’s a liar.”

“Yes, I believe you’ve established that.”

“She’ll keep lying.”

“She has no reason to lie now.”

“She doesn’t need a reason.
 
It’s a habit.”
 
But Kelly released her and stepped back.

Naomi rubbed her throat.
 
“Thank you,” she said.

“Lie to me again, bitch.
 
See if you can thank me after I snap your neck.”

“For someone who thinks the body count is too high, you sure like to play the violence card.”

“When innocent people die, it bothers me.
 
Whatever happens to you, you brought on yourself.
 
Big difference.”

“Naomi,” I said.
 
“I need to know what’s going on.”

“So far, you managed to get Ravenwood’s attention, and he checked you out.
 
I think he was trying to possess you the whole time you were doing the demonstration with Margie.
 
The fact that he couldn’t will keep you on his radar.
 
But I don’t know that he considers you much of a threat or he’d have killed you.”

“Just like that.”
 
I intentionally withheld the fact that Ravenwood said we might be useful.

“It wouldn’t be difficult.
 
You can’t be affected by direct magic, but indirect magic will certainly work on you.
 
He could open a hole beneath you a thousand feet deep and let you fall to your death.
 
He could control all the weapons in Kelly’s cabinet over there and have them all attack you at once.
 
You might block some, but you’d be killed eventually.”

“Nice to know.”

“He’s primarily dangerous to wizards, of course.
 
He doesn’t care about normal people.
 
If anything, he’d think of them as his subjects.
 
He won’t go out of his way to hurt them, but he won’t care if they’re lost as collateral damage, as you just witnessed.
 
I learned a lot before he escaped.
 
We were wrong about so many things.”

“Such as?” I asked.

“Magic isn’t dying at all.
 
Through the centuries, wizards have simply lost the ability to tap into the power lines that encircle the planet.
 
Ravenwood can tap into them with no trouble at all.
 
He waited until the crystals were united, and then he escaped.
 
He tapped into the power, killed two wizards faster than I can tell you about it, and took over my father so he’d have a vessel.”

I considered this.
 
The belief among wizards was that the power lines were fading and that was why magic was dying.
 
Some areas still have more energy than others—such as the ley lines in the Welsh countryside.
 
From what Naomi was saying, the entire theory would have to be reassessed.