33. Royal

Chapter 33

Royal

Royal glanced up at the star-glittering sky and tucked in his bottom lip. Fertile earth dented with a soft squish beneath his weight with each dutiful step he wove between splinters of light and shadow as if attempting to pass a field sobriety test. The serenity of the balmy night amplified the crush of grass, chorus of croaking frogs, cacophony of cicadas, shuffling of reeds, and splashes of creatures in the water that served as an ecological score. As he made his way through the trees with the tenacity and stealth of a death-row fugitive from Angola to an abandoned chapel on the outskirts of the bayou, every presynaptic and postsynaptic terminal in his brain rapidly fired a distress alarm. This was a bad idea—a very bad idea.

Royal didn't know why he'd agreed to this. Not true. He did know. It was because Easton had asked him, and he'd do anything for Easton. But this was beyond…. Was there even a word for what this was? Insanity barely scratched the surface of describing it.

What in all of God's green earth did Royal know about casting a spell? Hell, what did he know about witchcraft and psychic abilities? Okay, honestly, probably a little more than he'd let on. He'd been doing some reading over the past months. Okay, okay. If he had to come clean with himself, he could admit that he'd been researching for a couple of years, but only because he'd thought he'd seen something—a shadow—one night in a hotel hallway. It had floated past him and followed Cody into the lobby.

Initially, Royal hadn't been certain he'd seen anything. After all, he had tossed back a few beers that night and maybe—not that he'd admit anything—had taken a few puffs of pot. But then there had been a series of strange events—nothing specifically that Royal could describe other than a general weirdness. Then it all stopped without explanation until right before the event in Toledo. Things had been whack-a-doodle ever since.

How convenient it would have been to blame his vision on a bad trip of whacky weedy. However, after witnessing the hotel incident with Cody, Royal hadn't toyed around with any funny cigarettes again or divulged what he'd witnessed to anyone. He hadn't known what to make of it until the witch helped lay it all out for him. In a way, he wished she hadn't. Ignorance was bliss, as the saying went. Now here he was, about to…

What the fuck am I doing?

His stomach churned and nose hairs itched.

There has to be another way.

With each step, his mind skimmed a Rolodex of alternative solutions. However, his mental files kept coming up blank. Nothing. Empty.

Fuck!

Swearing wasn't helping, and he wasn't sure it even made him feel better, but it was better than nothing, he supposed. His soul not only quaked for what could happen to Easton if casting went south, but he also knew what it meant for him. There would be no turning back.

"Mage" was what the witch had called him. As much as he wanted to deny it—to run screaming away in that moment and denounce the witch as a liar—his heart told him it was true. Events from the past that hadn't made sense suddenly did. The unexplainable had an explanation. Thus, he'd remained, listened, and learned.

The witch had explained that while some abilities were innate, others were learned. Sometimes, a person born with innate abilities would force them to become inactive if suppressed long enough. But once acted upon, their presence would be solidified, and all of the supernatural world would know of his existence and feel free to interact with him. Basically, he was inscribing his name onto a ghoulish internet freeway and opening his life to…. He didn't want to think about it. He couldn't and welcomed denial as his constant companion.

The crumbling stone walls of the chapel nestled in a cluster of Spanish-moss-draped oak trees came into view. A portion of its slate roof next to the chimney was missing, and lush green vines stretched across the broken windows. It once had been part of a large sugarcane plantation that, due to its uniqueness, had fallen into ruin in the crossfire of the pending Civil War. The plantation had been owned and operated by gens de couleur libres and farmed without slave labor. As tension between the North and South mounted, Southern laws defining racial status muddled the line between gens de couleur libres and freed slaves and stripped the former of legal rights. What war and politics hadn't destroyed, time and Mother Nature had.

"We're here," Royal announced, shining his flashlight at what was once the bell headstock. They had arrived on the west side of the structure. "Watch your step," he instructed, protecting himself with the sign of the cross as he continued toward the chapel. Although obstructed by overgrowth, he knew there were more than a dozen coping graves of his maternal ancestors that hadn't been relocated.

"Now I see why you said we couldn't ride the four-wheelers. These trees are ridiculous."

"The rumor is that when the owners learned their land was going to be seized by the government, they burned all the crops and planted mimosas, sweetgum, and yellow poplar to make it arduous for anyone trying to farm it."

"Well played."

The two walked the remainder of the way to the chapel in silence. Once inside, they spread a quilt across the decaying floor and sat down. Royal removed a wrinkled and torn sheet of paper from his pocket and read the scrawled instructions of the witch.

"It says we're to light four candles."

"Okay." Easton dug into the backpack Royal had set on the ground and found a grill lighter and bundle of white candles bound by twine.

Royal pulled the backpack toward him. "While you do that, I'm to put mint, allspice, sage, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, basil, nutmeg, and pyrite into a bowl. Pooyah-ee! " His brows bunched. "Are we getting rid of a demon or baking bread pudding?"

Easton looked up from unbinding the candles and shrugged. "You're asking me? You're the one with the instructions. Didn't you read the list before we bought all this stuff?"

"Some of it," he abashedly admitted. "But when you said you'd finish the list while I was in sporting goods, I didn't bother."

"Didn't you think you needed to know what you'd be working with? Suppose it said you needed a vestal virgin to sacrifice or something?"

"I guess I would have had to go with the or something , cos it's damn near impossible finding a virgin of any kind these days."

"True."

Silently, Royal cussed himself and retrieved the blue calcite bowl to add the spices. He'd pilfered the bowl from his mother, part of a mortar and pestle that she used to make chimichurri, hummus, and pesto. Fortunately, she had others, and hopefully, she wouldn't mind him swiping this one. But the spell had been specific about the materials required. He hadn't known what blue calcite was until he looked it up and saw that it resembled the mortar and pestle.

"Mm." Concern clouded Easton's eyes, and he hesitated before asking his follow-up question. "Do you think it's a hoax?"

"No." Royal shook his head. "If it is, I guess we'll find out. Keep going."

Seemingly satisfied with the answer, Easton nodded and returned to untying the candles.

Around the bowl, Royal positioned aventurine stones, three pennies, and Palo Santo sticks. No joke, the Palo Santo sticks had been a pain in the ass to find.

"Now what?" Easton asked.

"I light the sage smudge thingamajig, and then we hold hands."

Easton nodded.

"Close your eyes," Royal instructed, taking Easton's hands in his after he'd completed the instructions. He closed his eyes as well—partly to concentrate, because the witch said drawing from his ka would increase the likelihood of a successful casting, but mostly because he didn't want to witness anything that happened. He'd ripped that portion from the paper the witch had given him before leaving her tent. He hadn't wanted to chance anyone seeing it and then conjuring up some moronic idea to try it—the way he was now.

Royal carefully chanted the words he'd practiced and memorized of a forgotten language—not dead or abandoned like Latin but struck from memory at the Tower of Babel. He spoke slowly to articulate each word to the best of his ability, yet a degree of uncertainty regarding correctness could have partly contributed to his lagging rate.

He concluded the incantation.

"That's it?" Easton questioned. "It's done? Did it work?"

Royal had no clue and shrugged.

"Well, what now?"

As Royal parted his lips to answer, a rustling of wind rattled the branches, and a new kind of silence ensued—a stillness, the kind felt minutes before a twister dropped. Even the sloshing of the bayou had ceased. A chill pimpled Royal's skin as a sense stronger than any he'd ever known overtook him. Slowly, he opened his eyes, expecting to find darkness, and gasped at the sight. A dense mist shrouded the entire heart pine floor, obscured visibility, and dampened the air.

"Roy?" Easton whispered, his eyes frantically scanning the room.

"Shh," Royal replied, his stare focused on glints of color twinkling in the nimbus, recognizing its deceptive beauty to conceal the danger pulsing in the atmosphere.

As the grotesque, smoky mass thickened, the foul smells of corrosive acid, sogginess, and infection mounted and hung in the air like primordial Grecian thermae, stinging and watering his eyes.

We have to get out of here.

Before Royal could voice a warning, a boll of fog swirled into the shape of what looked to be some type of claw with talons and launched toward Easton's throat, slamming his friend backward but not to the floor.

"No!" Royal yelled, heaving Easton to him. "You can't have him."

His words appeared either to anger or challenge the force, because the weight yanking against him compounded. His biceps burned as he struggled to maintain his grip.

"It's so heavy," Easton gurgled. His shoes scraped against the wooden floor as he struggled to keep his head above the spectral energy and hang on to Royal.

A second claw emerged—this one digging into Royal's shoulder—and a steely pressure rammed into his chest. The blow forced a whoosh of breath from his lungs, and his shoulder smoldered as if glued to a hot iron. The pain almost masked the warm feel of the blood trickling down his arm and the alarming odor of charring meat.

Don't squirm. It'll make it worse.

The thought was easier said than done, and Royal writhed in pain. He screamed what he thought would be a litany of vulgarities, but he didn't recognize the words or his own voice, though he knew they had come from him. His throat felt scorched as if he'd been force-fed Carolina Reaper sauce, and his lungs throbbed.

Another claw formed, and Royal saw it more vividly. It resembled that of an eagle except it had nine talons instead of four and knobby overlapping placoid scales like a serpent. The tarsus was ashen gray with a purplish hue and the nails a pitch-black with gleaming pewter tips. The span of the claw looked to be approximately eight inches. It clamped his scalp from behind and yanked. The pull was enough to drag him and Easton several feet across the room. Splinters poked his legs through his jeans. He felt his grip on Easton loosen.

"Don't let—" he yelled but halted at the sight of Easton's bluing lips and ashy skin. Only the whites of his eyes were visible as he dry-retched.

This thing is going to kill us. Think. Think. His pulse quickened. Someone must pay.

Suddenly, Royal had his answer. His heart both swelled and saddened simultaneously.

"I love you, East." He took in his best friend and lover one final time before letting go and collapsing backward into the fog. His head fuzzed with fatigue as he drifted away from a distant female cry.