Page 59 of Transfiguration

“I gotta break a spell, and that might cause the roof to come down on us,” Con warned.

Seiran tightened his grip and Con felt a shield of power wrap around them, slamming a barrier down on the suction of magic and cutting off the spell. “Can you cast through the shield?”

“I think so,” Con said as he sent a push of energy toward the ring, hoping it didn’t bounce back. His spell went through the shield but did little to the energy coming from the ring. “Going to need a bigger punch.”

“If I break the circle, will it undo the spell?” Seiran asked.

“Usually, but it’s carved into the ground.” Con didn’t know if Seiran could see it from his angle behind him. The narrow space and collapsed walls didn’t allow much light through.

“Hmm,” Seiran said and Con felt the ripple of his magic as vines sprouted, growing and stalking forward toward the ring until they dug into the ground and the building shook around them.

“Fuck,” Con cursed again as debris rained down, but trickled off Seiran’s shield. The spell vanished when the vines created a divot in the outer line. Vines climbed up the wall, wrapping up a beam that lay across their path and dragging it upward. The whole building shifted. Con readied a wallop of wind. When the beam broke free, the entire rest of the second floor and ceiling collapsed down on their heads. Con sent a blast of wind upward, an explosion outward of the falling wood and shingles. The sky gaped dark above them as the dust settled.

“That was fun,” Seiran said, staring up at the stars. “I’d like to blow up buildings sometime.”

Con swallowed a laugh and crawled forward, trying to avoid nails and slivers of wood jutting everywhere. The circle was a lot larger than he’d first thought, three or more yards in diameter and in the center was a body. Not Bella, rather an older female, with long hair, face turned the other way. She was so newly dead that she didn’t smell yet. A few hours dead, maybe? Con had encountered his fair share of fresh kills. Normally the bowels let loose, but they locked this woman in a frozen state of fresh death; he could almost sense her recent passing.

“What the fuck?” Con muttered as he rolled her over to examine her. Her eyes were open, staring blankly ahead, but seemed still alive? She didn’t breathe, and he couldn’t get a heartbeat. Her skin was cold to the touch, but not hardening, as it usually did after death.

Seiran turned on the flashlight on his phone and looked her over. His frown said a lot of things that made Con worry.

“What?” Con demanded.

“They have drained her of magic. Maybe even her soul?” Seiran put a hand on her chest, his eyes swirling with earthen power. “There’s nothing left but a shell.”

“How is that possible?”

“I’ve had a few cases over the years like this, never solved as they were scattered over continents and years. Nothing to tie them together until now.”

“Is this like the inheritance thing?” Con wondered.

“No. The inheritance spell doesn’t touch the soul. Why would anyone want someone else’s soul?” He waved the hand holding the phone. “Or whatever that internal energy is that makes us who we are. She feels as empty as the golem does.”

“Maybe this was to make a golem?”

“Overkill.”

“We don’t know how smart these witches are.” Con searched the body for any sign of ID. Nothing. The woman was older, maybe late sixties.

Seiran pulled something up on his phone and took a picture of her face. “Going to search a few databases and see if I can get a match before calling this in.”

“We should probably not stay,” Con said. He activated the runes that gathered all traces of himself to magnetize hair and skin cells. The wind picked up the dirt beneath the center of the circle the woman lay inches from, and the edge of a slip of fabric peeked out. “What’s that?” Con reached for it, digging free a small bag. He opened it to find a finger bone. The woman had all of hers, and this looked older, free of all flesh and ligament. He frowned at it.

“She was the Pillar of Fire,” Seiran said.

Con’s heart flipped over. “What?”

Seiran crawled closer to show the screen of his phone and the photo he pulled up. Sure enough, the woman had been the Pillar of Fire. Did that mean there was a new Pillar now? What about Sam?

“They killed the Pillar of Fire without making fire go nuts? Is there anything on the news? Volcanoes erupting or anything?” Con asked.

Seiran searched on his phone. “Signal is shit out here, but no. Nothing.”

“Maybe she wasn’t a true scion?” Con tried.

“Maybe,” Seiran said.

“You never met her?”