Page 62 of Transfiguration
“Maybe you should call your vampire back then?” Could Gabe talk some sense into him?
“He can’t keep going through the veil.”
Con sighed. “Call the fairy then, and not your kid. Kaine needs to be treated like a kid and not a freak.”
“I would never,” Seiran said.
“No, but you’re not the entire world, either. Let’s go, Ronnie,” Con said, using Sam’s nickname for him. “I need to find a dead vampire body and ask it some fucking questions. If I have to torture him along the way, even better.”
TWENTY-SIX
Con insisted they go to the spot Sam had taken Luca to ground first. He took a few minutes to trace protective runes into the dirt. The soft soil creating a well to fill with chalk. He sprinkled the patterns with dust, outlining them carefully.
Con wished he felt something, a presence of them, perhaps? Anything to show they were there. But earth wasn’t his power. He pulled a small knife out of his bag, part of his supplies retrieved from their borrowed space, and sliced a narrow band up his inner left arm. The section was mostly clear of ink, and often used for spells like this, but reopening the scar was easy. It took a few seconds for the blood to rise. He shook the blood over the site and the runes, letting it fall to the soil filled with his power.
The entire thing glowed, pulsing with energy. Protection, strength, life, and renewal, all things Con used every time Sam went to ground, hoping to hurry him back fully in control and in charge. He locked down the spell, leaving it drawing from the faint breeze in the giant arboretum and the ley lines, and turned to Seiran. The ripple in the air remained the only clue that the barrier was there at all. It should keep them inside if they were to rise while he was out. Con didn’t know if it would work against Sam as a revenant. He was stronger than most when all his brain's capacity was functioning. With the beast in control, he might blast through Con’s shield, ignoring the physical damage and pain it would cause. But Seiran added more protection around the arboretum without being asked.
“Ready to go?” Con asked.
“I need to read some of these books,” Seiran grumbled. Bryar appeared next to him, human sized and in armor. “No hack and slash,” Seiran told him.
Bryar sighed. “Where’s the fun in that?”
“If we find a demon,” Con said, “you can hack and slash that.”
Bryar smiled, his mouth full of razor-sharp teeth, eyes glowing, and face skeletal, the blood magic side of him coming through. “Oh goodie. I knew I liked you for a reason.” He waved his hand to open a portal, and Seiran grabbed Con’s arm, tugging him through the second it appeared.
It disoriented Con for a few seconds. The wind whipping around them in a thousand ways, but the glowing lines fascinated him. Were they a type of rune? A manifestation of fae magic? He studied the etching glow, but they moved too fast. They dropped into a wooded area filled with green, the changing of leaves, fall in full swing. He focused on his breath for a few seconds to calm the roiling of his stomach.
“It’s always a trip,” Seiran said, “but you get used to it.” He pulled up his phone, studying a map. “We should be just outside the array. The cabin is on the opposite side.” He pointed off one way. “The watchtower where Sam was originally bound was just over there.”
Con could hear water running, which meant the river was nearby. Sam had died in that river, pulled out by Kelly’s magic, and brought back by Gabe. Con wondered if Luca’s transition would be the same? On the brink, but still salvageable? He shoved back the pain, letting his anger rise. It was easier to control the rage than the pain. He’d make a shitty vampire. Good thing he was a simple wind witch, discounted and ignored by everyone.
Dusk fell, tinting the sky in pinks and oranges. Con looked over Seiran’s shoulder at the map and the picture of the broken array. It was huge. A hundred times the size of the one Seiran had shown him before everything went to shit. He needed to get to a clearing where he could draw the wind down to help him field the spell.
“I’m going to change,” Con said, as he took off the backpack and undressed. He didn’t have to but didn’t want to hunt for his clothes later. “I want to look from above.”
“Do you have a rune that makes the change faster?” Seiran asked.
“No. Just stored energy from the wind.” He stuffed his clothes into the pack, not caring if he was naked for a few seconds, and tapped the change. It was like breathing, a deep breath in, and on the exhale he shifted, taking flight to glide up over the trees. Bryar changed with him, flying close by, bug form larger than his usual ladybug size, but Con ignored him, searching the skyline and the wind through the trees for any subtle changes in the area's structure.
The broken array didn’t pulse with power like he hoped. But the burn of it remained etched into the ground in lines of dead soil, then vanishing into the trees. He found the tower where Sam had been bound, used as a blood sacrifice to fuel the spell. All that was left was little more than splintered wood and overgrowth. It all looked black in Con’s vision, dipped in ink or oil. Lifeless. Sucked free of magic?
Were those chunks still moving, maybe even slowly expanding? He wondered if the spell could reactivate over time if it finally grew back together. There appeared to be broken lines, skewed by the way the water had shifted the landscape, but they still reached for each other. That was a frightening thought.
He could sense the ley lines. They didn’t cross, but they weren’t far apart either. The water ran a jagged line between them as if it had shifted the very magic of them and broken the array. He wished he knew back then what he did now. He might have more answers.
Con swooped low, trying to get a better look, his vision playing tricks on him as he glided on the wind, absorbing its power to refuel and recharge all his stores as he went. It was strange, like one of those puzzles that only made sense by looking from the side or staring away from it to find movement. He landed several yards away from the remains of the tower, careful and cautious, feeling something, but unable to describe it.
It wasn’t a demon thing, was it? He shifted and found that it hurt.
“Fuck,” he cursed, his body pulling together slow as molasses, bones and joints screaming in sudden pain.
Bryar appeared at his side with Seiran, who gripped Con’s backpack. Seiran flinched. “It’s like the mark at the slaughter field,” Seiran said. “But broken?” He kept his distance, not stepping in the parts of the array where the darkness burned into the ground.
Con had to work to breathe, his muscles clenching and unclenching like one massive charley horse cramp. Changing this close was a bad idea. He tugged on the blowing wind, requesting strength, and feeling it flow over his skin, filling him with energy and soothing the pain.
“Fuck,” he cursed again, finally able to unclench his muscles and stand up.