Page 4 of Resurrection

Earth was Sei’s strong point. But the ropes surrounding him were some sort of metal coated in plastic. Weirdly immune to his element. The tiny bit of power he’d used simply to discover the makeup of the trap bonds, and the haphazard spell controlling it, made the golem open glowing red eyes and turn its head his way. It seemed to grow a little in size, the edge of dark menace trickling from it until he stopped using magic. Almost as if it was pulling from Sei’s magic. That could go bad very fast as Sei’s magic was almost limitless.

Some sort of ward, perhaps?

Nothing he’d ever seen before, and he spent a lot of time studying the obscure—mastering wards and incantations—that could be construed as gray magic. Not because he planned to do nefarious things, but to recognize them before the danger grew out of control. He’d had a successful career out of doing just that. Apparently, today was to be his day of self-discovered inadequacies.

This golem might have been used for stupid things, but whatever spell it had been tied to for defense, was not benign. A golem could punch through concrete, or break a human into pieces, but it couldn’t cast its own spells. It was a thing created by magic, but not one that could manipulate magic.

As the Pillar of Earth, the most powerful earth mage on the planet, Sei could have decimated the bonds and the golem all in one blow. But it would have damaged the dorm, and been anexcessive use of force. Which meant lots of paperwork, and he’d be unable to question the golem about who had created it, and who might have died for it to live. These were not low-level spells, so even if some kid found a book of necromancy in their parents locked spells cabinet, creating a golem wasn’t the same as microwaving a pizza—pop the disk in the box for five minutes and wait. It was a complicated list of ingredients, incantations, and required a high-level witch. This wasn’t even a magic studies dorm; no one in the program, although a handful of them belonged to witch families.

How did a couple of jocks create a golem powerful enough to fool teachers, some of whom are witches themselves? How had no one sensed what they did? Or reported anything suspicious? Most of the magic students stayed in the dorms together, but he knew there were a couple dozen spread out across the campus, and the teachers were even more widespread, with almost every professor now having some sort of elemental strength. But no one noticed? Was that a spell, too? Something to mask the presence?

Sei would need to dive into the disaster of the Ascendance records again. The old cult of magic, though mostly disbanded, had collected a lot of questionable written works in their time. Their stockpile of reading spanned a more eclectic mess. But it was extensive, and Sei didn’t have that much time to read anymore. Not with a fulltime job, a tenured teaching position at the university, and three kids to raise. He didn’t thinkTales of Dark Magicwas ideal bedtime reading, either. Maybe he needed to remedy that.

He glared at the golem from his upside-down position. Blood rushing to his head was making it harder to think. Each use of magic seemed to be siphoned by the golem, even if it was only a hint, and then the binding spell sped up. Having spent years working on the balance of power around a siphon, Sei could detect the nuances of it. He wondered if Sam knew about spells to create siphon powers. Usually, those sorts of spells were temporary or lethal.

The inheritance ceremony transferred power from one individual to the next, but required the death of one caster. Sei couldn’t think of any spells that siphoned small bits of power. That was more the act of a born siphon, like Sam Mueller. He hated the fact that he’d have to call the vampire as soon as he got out of this mess, maybe even sooner.

The golem was far enough away, a good ten feet, that it was hard for Seiran to make out the tiny inscription on its forehead, which of course, was in another language.

Latin? It didn’t seem to be Latin, although Latin was still the language most commonly used in spell casting. Sei had been studying the language since he was a preteen. His mother had insisted that he memorize and master a lot of the original magic languages. Reading them was much easier than speaking them.

It didn’t look Greek either. More Farsi, or something else from the Middle East. And Sei only knew that because Sam had spent a lot of time mastering the language for his work under Maxwell Hart. Max was the master of vampires, so when he demanded, all the little vampires had to follow. Not that Sam was a little vampire. The whole witchandvampire thing was a big deal, as it was rare for powers to remain when a person crossed the threshold between life and death. But Sam worked for Max first, only begrudging Sei’s company when it benefited them both.

Would Sam know? It was an easy enough question. And a less messy fix to this entire situation. To control the golem and take it over, Sei needed its name. Too bad it hadn’t been written in English and said something like “Spot,” he would be done and gone. No need then to call the grumpy vampire.

Suck it up, Ronnie.Sei could hear Sam’s sarcasm in his head even while it was his brain conjuring up the vampire’s reaction.You’ll always need me. Some badass Pillar you are. Trapped by a couple of frat boys and unwilling to blow the place up.

Asshole, Sei thought.

The weight of his phone dug into his back pocket. The devices were huge now, and his didn’t like magic much, as he tended to short them out with magical bursts. Would the trap set it off?

Sei wiggled around to reach his phone, irritated that the ropes kept tightening each time he moved, and then did that weird, jerking, drop and wrap back up. It was not a fun ride at all, rather a startling drop that each time he thought he’d land face first, hands too wrapped up to catch himself, but it was a tease, never quite letting him go. And each trip back up, it wrapped up tighter, making it hard to breathe now. Plus the constant up and down was making him nauseous.

Finally, he got the phone and zoomed in on the forehead of the golem to take a picture. It seemed to be working, but the phone took a long time to send the image to Sam. Sei stared at it, hoping for a quick answer or callback. But he had no idea where Sam was. He could be halfway across the world.

The spell did its weird drop again, this time slapping Sei onto the floor hard enough to knock the breath out of him, and then yanking him back upward to slam into the ceiling. It felt a bit like being in a spider’s web, gummed up tight and barely able to move. At least he hadn’t dropped the phone. If he didn’t get a callback soon, he was going to say screw it all and blast this fucking trap to pieces, property damage or not. Of course, that could mean a rampaging golem minutes later, after it absorbed the power of Sei’s spell, but he’d cross that bridge when it happened.

He tried to navigate to a search, but it was hard to do that with one hand. His kids would have been able to do it. Ki was a master of phone stuff. Sakura too. Kaine didn’t much care for technology, but could use it because his siblings could.

The phone rang. Sam! Thank all things green and growing.

It took a fun game of how far could Sei twist his fingers in the wrong direction to push a button to get it to not only pick up the phone, but flip it to speaker. Maybe he needed to become one of those douchebags always walking around talking into an earpiece and acting all snooty when someone turned their way. Though he’d probably have lost an earpiece by now.

Another drop, tighten, roll upward. He was not a fan. A few more of these and he would upchuck the bento box meal he’d had for lunch.

“Hello?” Sei called, hoping he hadn’t accidentally disconnected the call. Or Sam hadn’t hung up in annoyance as he often did.

“Ronnie?”

That stupid nickname would never go away. At least Sam was the only one brave enough to call him that. “Did you get the picture?” Sei asked. Okay talking was bad. Ropes tightened when he talked. He was so going to fuck up whomever created this spell.

“Yeah, why are you messing with golems? You know there are field inspectors to do the dirty work, right?” He sounded as annoyed and sarcastic as usual. Sometimes Sei really wanted to hit him.

Sei fought for air for a minute, trying to breathe shallowly so the ropes didn’t tighten further. “Read name?” He gasped out. The ropes tightened again, leaving him breathless, and black spots dancing across his vision. He was running out of time. He had to either take over the golem or destroy it all before he passed out.

“It’s stupid. Fucking thing is named Forest. Who names a golem Forest? I mean, I get it looks like sticks, but it’s gotta be mostly clay underneath…” Sam rambled on.

All Sei needed was the name. The second he heard it, he wrapped his power around it, feeling the winding strength of the earth narrow down to the link on the golem. His power grabbed onto the name, a claim and bond that tried to suck magic from him immediately. But he took over control, weaving his strength around it, and scrawling its name in the power. The swirling energy etched through the golem told Sei more than one had died to create it. That was disheartening.