No More Black Magic (3 page)

Crap crap crap.

The door of the chamber opened and I glanced over to see who would come down, but I knew only Levi would dare.

“What’s up?” I asked and turned back to my book. I flipped towards the back where the older coven languages were.

“Someone sent me a note.”

Not what I wanted to hear, it normally meant that I was going to be hunting down something else. “What kind of note, Levi?”

“Have you found anything that matches the runes yet?”

I ground my teeth. “That’s not an answer to my question.”

“Nor is that an answer to mine.” He snapped back and stepped up to the circle. He couldn’t step through it. Nothing could that wasn’t originally inside. That was the great thing about circles, and I used it against him often when I was a child.

“Not yet, but I’ve been looking in modern versions of the runes, now I’m going back towards the older ones. Now, what kind of note?” I ran my fingers over the pages while looking for something, anything that would be similar enough to give me a place to start.

Levi cleared his throat and I looked up. He held it up and though I couldn’t make them out, I could see runes from where I was. Dread filled me. “They sent you a note in the form of a spell? What the fuck.”

“Same ones?”

I studied it and nodded. “Looks like it, but those are a little different, same coven though. I’d be stupid to think otherwise. The bases are the same.”

“So whoever it is, they are sending me a message too.” Levi walked over to the desk and left it on top. “What do you know about them?”

I shook my head and leaned back on my hands. “Not a whole lot. I have a feeling that they are old, super old, but until I find the base of those runes, I won’t know for sure. I’m hoping it’s someone who’s just more versed in old magic than I am, but my age or at least my skill level.”

“Why?”

“Because if they are sending you notes, it means that I’m going to end up facing them. If they kill again, it means I’m going to end up facing them. There’s only so much I can do against a witch or a warlock that is more powerful than me.” And that made me nervous. My bloodline came from the best of the best, traced back to the druids. We were all powerful; there were rumors that some of our line were so powerful that they went insane, a possibility with magic and those who never learned to control it. I don’t know about going insane, but I was powerful for my age and I know both my mother and father were legends in some parts.

Levi tapped the table. “Best you leave it in here until you figure out what the spell is.”

“Obviously wasn’t meant for you.” I muttered and closed my book. “Or it probably would have activated already.” I rubbed my eyes and gathered up the papers I'd drawn of the runes.

“Do you think it was for you?” He raised a brow. “Isn’t that a bit pompous, Abby?”

I snorted. “Who delivered it? What did they look like? Did they happen to give you a name?”

“A young man, my height, brown hair, hazel eyes, no noticeable scars. Probably would have tasted good.”

I shot him a look; I didn’t appreciate him talking about his meals. Vampire or not, I didn’t have to be comfortable with his feeding habits. His smile told me he was joking.

“He didn’t leave a name, just said he had been paid to deliver it to an Abigail Collins.”

As I had suspected, it was meant for me. “Must have just pissed him off when you said you’d have to give it to me.”

“He wasn’t pleased. He had already tried your home residence.” Levi shrugged.

I closed my eyes and drew my power in to close the circle. Once done, I stood with my gathered books and papers and walked over to the desk. Levi motioned to it.

“It’s yours, do what you will with it.”

I thought about where I was. The chamber meant that no one else in the mansion would be affected. I could use a protective circle to protect Levi, but if I needed help the circle would have prevented him from helping. No, no circle with this.

“Step out of the room, if you hear me scream or fall or something, come back in.”

“Why out of the room?”

I licked my lips. “In case it explodes.”

“Is that a possibility?” He asked, all humor drained from his voice.

I looked at the paper, not touching it yet. “Yes, but these aren’t the same runes, so I don’t expect it. If it makes you feel better, just stand outside the doorway.”

“I think that might be a better option for us here.” He marched to the door and stood just outside the frame.

I turned back to the note. I didn’t like it, but there was no telling what the message was without touching it and activating the magic. I took a sharp breath and slammed my hand down on it.

Blinding white pain took me over and I cried out. I knew I pulled away from the paper and crumbled to the ground, but I no longer knew where I was. I’d forgotten what I’d been doing and what was going on. The pain turned into tingling numbness, but my vision refused to come back. My heart pounded so hard I could hear it in my ears. My limbs refused to move and my mind started to slip away. I tried to cling to consciousness, focus on anything that might ground me into reality, call on my magic, anything, but nothing was going to keep me from being sucked into the spell that I had activated. Fuck. Me.

“Stay hidden, Abby.” My mother’s voice whispered in my ear. “Daddy and I have this handled.”  She put her bleeding hand against the drawn circle and I felt the magic flow over me.

She was leaving me. I knew how this would end. It ended with Levi finding a witch to take down the circle and me seeing my mother’s body, but now...now there was something different about the scene. Runes, all over the house, glowing with red. Something I wouldn’t have been able to see at that age, because I wasn’t trained, but now...in this dream, this memory, I could see all of them.

The world around me disappeared and I found myself standing in a different kind of circle. Two rings of red circled my feet with a rune in the middle. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breathe. Evil magic crawled up my spine, magic that meant to kill. A cloaked figure moved in front of me and panic curled in my stomach.

“Ra sent me to deliver a message to you.”

I tried to meet the figure’s gaze, but it didn’t work. Shaded by the hood there was no telling who was under there. I wish I had been able to speak.

“You do not know who you are dealing with. Let us complete our mission and then we will be out of your territory. With the spell, we left a little assurance that you would not bother us while we are here.”

What the hell was he talking about?

“You’ll find out when you wake up. Stay out of our way Abigail, unless you want to end up like your parents.”

He faded away and so did the circles around me. I could move again, my heart started pounding, blood rushed in my ears. I was dropped back into my old home and watched as the four year old me cried and howled over the barely recognizable body of my mother.

The mechanical beep was not what I had been expecting. I opened my eyes and cringed as my entire body felt like fire was running through it still. I groaned and suddenly a face was above mine. Clarissa’s eyes were wide and rimmed with red like she’d been crying.

“Oh my Goddess, I’m not dead.” No, but I was in a hospital, which alone was scary enough. “What am I doing here?”

“Levi said you touched a note and suddenly started convulsing on the floor. Your heart stopped and your body was reacting like you were poisoned.”

That still didn’t explain exactly what I was doing here. “Clarissa, you could have healed poison, I know you have a concoction for that.”

“I tried, I tried everything I could but with your heart stopping, we had no choice but to bring you here. They were able to revive you...” Her bottom lip trembled and I closed my eyes.

I had flat lined and Clarissa wasn’t able to help me. What on earth was in that spell? “How long have I been unconscious for?”

“Two days.”

Aw fuck, probably long enough for those people to get away. I should have left it alone, but I couldn’t. I never could. It was just my nature. “Fantastic.” I sat up and cried out as pain laced through me. I fell back and took deep breaths. “I can’t move without pain.”

She nodded. “Whatever spell it is, it’s still on you.”

“You can’t break it?” It had to be serious if Clarissa couldn’t break it, she was the best when it came to hexes.

“I don’t know what it is, Abby, those runes...they aren’t modern, they don’t belong to our country or to any covens here.”

I needed my book. “Okay, listen closely. I need you to go to Levi’s and to the chamber. There’s a book on the desk with all my drawings of the runes. Grab me the book and in my house, there’s a box under my bed. Inside is a brown pouch with tealeaves. Get me those.”

“Tea, Abby? At a time like this?” Clarissa raised a brow and I knew she thought I’d lost my mind.

“They are from my mother’s collection of tea. She gave me a cup of it the night she was killed. I have a feeling it helped with whatever happened there.”

“Witch hunters don’t use magic Abby, I can see that train of thought.”

But what if it hadn’t been witch hunters? I shook my head. “It should help with the pain. Please, Clarissa.”

“I can’t leave until Levi gets here.” She sat back down in a chair.

“Okay, will you call him and ask him to get the stuff?”

She let out a sigh and then stood. “I’ll be right outside the door.”

“Hey, where’s my phone?”

Clarissa shrugged. “I assume Levi has it.”

I hope he did, because if the state called me while I was out and I didn’t answer...no, they probably knew that I was in the hospital, trying not to die from some nonexistent poison. That made me feel like pins were being shoved all over my body. Great. I hated magic some days.

I fell asleep thanks to the pain medication, but I didn’t miss the feeling of power that came with Levi entering the room. My eyes flickered open and it took me a second to realize what he was carrying. A travel mug that had tea escaping from the tiny drinking hole and my dad’s book tucked under his arm. Other than Levi, the room was empty and I wondered where Clarissa had run off to.

“You look peachy.” He said and came to the edge of the bed. His face was blank and I wondered what he was thinking. He had been there each night worrying or had he known I was going to pull through?

I slowly held my hands out for the tea. I seemed to be moving a little better, as long as I didn’t put too much pressure on my arms or try to get out of the bed. I used the little button on the bed to move me up into a sitting position and started to sip my tea. I hoped I was right and that it would work.

After a moment I answered him. “I’m pretty sure I was hexed and I think it’s the people who killed my parents.”

“Abby—“ His voice held a warning and his careful blank face fell into a frown.

“When I was unconscious, someone came to my dream and told me if I wasn’t careful I’d end up like them. I could see the runes all over the house in the dream. They said they were on a mission and that Ra had sent them.”

“I didn’t think anyone worshiped the old Egyptian gods still.” He sat in the chair that Clarissa had abandoned when she left.

I shook my head and instantly regretted it. “I didn’t think so either, but it’s what he said.”

“So what do you plan on doing?” Levi asked. “I know I’m not going to want to hear the answer to this, but I also know that we can’t let it go unanswered.”

That was the truth. “Once I get my pain under control and get out of here, I’m going back to my parents’ house. I think the answers are there. Or at least the start of it.”

“And the state?”

“I’m pretty sure whoever hexed me killed the man in the barn. I just don’t know why. Once I know who he is, I’ll have a better understanding of what is going on there.” I sipped my tea and sighed. “Clarissa said you had my phone, did I miss any calls?”

“Detective Mason said they had identified the arm, but there was a problem. He wouldn’t tell me what, but wanted you to call him the moment you were feeling up to it. I’m not part of the team.” Levi snorted.

The arm...I tried to imagine what on earth the issue could be with the arm. “Okay, I’ll add that to my list once this is under control.”

“Your mother left you a pentagram pendent, you weren’t wearing it the night you were hexed.”

I shook my head. “I can’t wear it to crime scenes, sometimes the spell on it messes with my abilities to see things.”

“Do you think it would have helped with this?” He motioned to me lying in the hospital bed and then to the machines.

Frowning, I thought about it. “I don’t know. She would’ve had to know what kind of magic would have been used. Mostly the pendent helps with simple stuff: nightmares, visions, that kind of thing.”

“If these are the same people, she might have known.” His voice was somewhere between mocking and concerned.

Well shit, he was right. “Any chance you brought the necklace?”

“Yes.” He pulled it out of his pocket and tossed it to me.

I studied the silver star, laid in a circle made from Celtic knotting. A small green stone sat in the middle of the star and just looking at it gave me comfort. I wrapped my hands around it and it was like the pain just disappeared. I met Levi’s gaze. The vampire was right.

“I really wish my parents would stop hiding things from me.” I growled and put the necklace on.

He chuckled. “They’re dead, it’s not like they have much of a choice.”

He had a point but I rolled my eyes anyways. Until I figured out how to break the spell, the tea and the pendant were just going to have to work. “Let me call Detective Mason back, and then I’ll talk to the doctor about getting out of here.”

Levi handed me my phone. “You’re not going to your place alone. Clarissa will go with you, or Simon.”

“Simon,” I said without hesitation. Clarissa was great to have around when dealing with magic, but she wasn’t great during a crisis. “Clarissa tends to over react, I need someone who can keep their head on straight.”

Levi nodded. “Then I shall call the wolf.”

“Tell him I’ll do the wards tonight too.” I rubbed my eyes. “Losing three days of my life sucks.”