Page 82 of Transfiguration
“Asshole,” Con said without heat. They rounded the cabin to reach the symbol, but it was oddly dark, like the energy that had once fueled it was gone.
“Did you break the spell?” Sam asked.
“No. All I did was move the zombies, and this thing pulsed that nasty residue a minute ago. Was it some sort of alarm?”
“What the fuck?” Sam asked. “Did they find the piece of that bastard already?”
Con held out the bag of the parts, opening it and letting the wind guide them together, the pieces of the hand and the teeth. Having those bits free from the spelled bag made Sam’s jaw ache. The wrongness of them burning deep. They floated there for a minute while Con wove a spell in the air, a slight glow of symbols appearing as he traced them with his fingertips.
The pieces jolted across the distance, magnetized to snap into place. They stopped and floated above the center of the dark symbol.
“What does that mean?” Sam asked.
Con frowned and took a tentative step forward. “It means there are parts here. But the symbol is dark? Why leave parts if they need his body?” Con watched his feet as he stepped over the dark line and Sam swallowed, waiting for something bad to happen. Nothing did.
“Maybe they already got what they needed from it?”
“Maybe,” Con said, but didn’t sound certain at all.
They carefully picked their way to the center of the symbol where the pieces floated. “Maybe the spell is off and he was here, but isn’t now?” Sam asked. He didn’t know how this works. “Can the spell sense he was here, but isn’t now?”
“This is my best tracking spell. It’s never failed me before when I’ve had an actual piece of what I was following. It’s not a residual spell. There has to be part of him left.” Con knelt to examine the space, digging at the soil for a minute. “This is where the ley lines converge, or should converge, but it feels… nullified?”
“Matthew’s skill was a null. I don’t know what else they did to him, but that power was his. I know it leaches into the soil after a while. Maybe that’s part of it?”
“But the symbol was active the last time we were here. Actively keeping everyone else out and making them forget it was even here.” Con frowned as he dug into the dirt, then paused and looked around.
“Why would they turn it off then? If it was protecting part of his body?”
Con sucked in a deep breath. “It’s a trap.”
“What?” Sam asked, his stomach flipping over.
A hand shot out of the ground, grabbing Con by the throat, and fire lit up Sam’s senses. Not his fire magic, but the burning flame of intense magic. The surrounding symbol blazed, locking his joints into place and making it impossible to move. He let out a garbled cry as Con struggled against the hand that rose from the ground with a mostly intact body with a familiar face. The grinning and somewhat broken form of Matthew rising from the dirt like some horror movie. The pieces that floated a few inches away snapped back to him as though drawn by magnetic force, putting teeth back in his mouth and, as he finished rising from the ground, his other hand reformed. Bones slid into place and flesh covered it instantly.
Con choked and struggled to breathe, fighting Matthew’s grip. But it wasn’t Matthew that peered out from that thing’s gaze. It was a blood-red glow, and the stench of sulfur that filled Sam’s senses. The saturating darkness within it oozed from him. A demon?
Sam struggled against the magic hold on him that felt like a vice, unable to breathe, speak, or move at all, he internally screamed as the monster finished its rise from the ground and its hands turned to claws, slitting Con’s throat and dropping him to lie in the dirt, bleeding out, and struggling for air, his lungs filling with blood.
Con’s terrified gaze met Sam’s for a half second before the beast filled Sam’s vision with a face Sam wished remained only in his nightmares.
“Sammie, so good of you to finally come. He misses you,” the thing said, fingertips brushing Sam’s face. If Sam could have screamed, he would have.
THIRTY-FIVE
Luca dreamed for a while, everything disjointed and rolling in circles that really made no sense. He lingered on the edge of sleep, that narrow band before true wakefulness and actual rest, memories of faces flickering through his mind without really clicking into place. He knew Sam and Con, but the rest were a wash of vague remembrance.
Luca jolted out of sleep at the sensation of his father nearby. It was an impression of heaviness that had existed for his entire life, though as he aged, the weight of it had eased until he’d nearly forgotten about it, only stirring from time to time. Was he okay? Luca’s mind pulsed like bits of lightning struck it, demanding it wake.
He blinked, the world slowly coming into focus around him, but confused, as he felt weightless and couldn’t hear anything, not even his own heartbeat. He had learned to tune it out over the years. Super hearing wasn’t always a good thing, but now, searching for it, he floundered for a reason he wasn’t hearing it. Was he still sleeping?
The arboretum unfolded around him, the colors a strange bright wash of rainbow shades he’d never seen before in the many times he’d been in the space. He’d always found it a peaceful preserve of green life, gentle running water, and a sense of calm serenity.
He held up a hand, wondering if his vision was as wonky as his hearing, but was shocked to find that though he felt he lifted it, he couldn’t see it. What the fuck? He tried the other one, and again, could feel the movement, knew technically he was waving his hands in front of his face, but couldn’t see anything. Was he invisible?
The space pulsed with energy, gentle waves of power that ached in Luca’s mind. He could see the rainbow as if it were a river of flowing multicolored water, and thought it beautiful, but other than the distant sound of wind blowing, he heard nothing, and no one. The space was usually full of floating fairy lights, bees, and the trickle of the small water fountain they’d built a decade ago. Even that was absent.
Glass littered the ground, making him look up. The windows gaped into the darkness, all broken as if something had shattered the space with one sonic boom. Beneath the rainbow hues of power, fire scorched the trees. Sam had been there. The waves of blazing orange lingered. That Sam was close helped soothe his worry as Luca stood a few feet away from a bramble of thorn-covered vines digging deep into the earth. What the hell was going on?