Chapter 42

Chapter

Forty-Two

At ten minutes to midnight, six people gathered in my basement workshop: Carly, Katy, Sean, Liam, Malcolm, and me.

The spellwork was done. The altar was ready. A hundred scents and the rising power of witch magic hung in the air.

Katy sat crosslegged at the top of our circle with a silver bowl full of spring water in front of her. She usually used an obsidian mirror for scrying, but apparently she preferred a bowl tonight.

The living participants had donned amulets that protected against spirit possession and identical hooded cloaks to help hide our faces from prying eyes. Malcolm and Liam had changed their ghostly attire to match and Katy had given them anti-possession spells. Everything in the circle was designed to protect us. The rest of Carly's coven had gathered in three secret locations to provide power, shielding, and defense for us.

Carly's original plan had only included herself, Katy, and me, but Sean refused to be a bystander and Malcolm wanted to be close enough to help Liam if the situation called for it, so she'd reset the contents of the circle to accommodate six people instead of three. Sean had left pack leadership to Matthias during the ritual, with Ben and pack member John Knightley as backup.

Matthias had taken the mantle solemnly and without hesitation, and Sean hadn't seemed to have a shred of hesitation giving it. Whatever happened during and after this ritual, and whatever decision the Were Ruling Council came to regarding its support of us, my faith in my pack had increased yet again—and the power I sensed at my back along with it.

At the stroke of midnight, Carly picked up her selenite athame and closed the circle around us. "We call upon The Morgana to protect those here and our other Sisters where they are. Hide us and defend us against anyone who tries to harm any of us. Guide our way as we banish this malevolent Spirit we are seeking. We call upon the Archangel Uriel to come into our circle to help and protect Liam as he takes the malevolent Spirit back to its rightful place in Tartarus. We ask Uriel to help Liam return safely to us once he has made his delivery."

The altar in our circle was the most beautiful and intricate I'd seen Carly and Katy make. At the top of the pentagram on the altar cloth, Carly had put a statue of The Morgana, who she'd described as a warrior and protector. At the top right, symbolizing Air, she'd placed her coven's precious grimoire because they were all participating in tonight's ritual. In the bottom right a dragon statue represented Fire and helped protect us. The bottom left had three large, smooth river stones for Water. The top left point of the pentagram contained a bowl of mud mixed with salt to represent Earth. According to Katy, it could hold Micajah's spirit if it became necessary.

In the center, Katy placed a large pentagonal mirror spelled to reflect anyone's eyes away from what we did or said within the circle. According to her, anyone attempting to scry or peer into tonight's ritual would see nothing but darkness.

All the careful preparation seemed like so much, and yet somehow not enough .

Parchment-scented witchy magic swirled around us, building steadily in power until I thought my hair would stand on end. Sean had offered his magic and Carly had accepted the offer, so golden shifter power stirred as well, along with my own magic drawn from my blood garden out back.

After her third time walking around the perimeter of our circle, Carly returned her athame to the altar and sat beside Katy, where she could intervene instantly if something went awry.

Katy had murmured to herself while Carly closed the circle. Now she spoke aloud. "I call upon the God Thor to protect and hide me in my workings here tonight. I call upon the Muse Calliope to help me to See what I must to help stop this necromancer and malevolent Spirit and return him to where he belongs."

As Katy bent her head over her bowl, waiting for a vision of the necromancer, Carly took a torn strip of parchment from the altar and dipped a quill into a pot of Sean's blood. Slowly and painstakingly, she wrote Micajah "Big" Harpe on the parchment, incorporating spellwork into the lines that formed the letters. The spellwork was designed to add power to the summoning. Micajah was sure to be protected by the necromancer's magic. We needed every advantage we could get.

The spellwork would begin to lose its potency the moment Carly finished drawing it. As soon as she completed the last symbol and letter, she set the quill aside, dropped the strip of parchment into a shallow clay bowl, and placed an amulet on top of it.

Carly rested her index finger on the red stone in the center of the amulet. In a tone that gave me chills because I'd seldom heard her sound so cold, she commanded, "Micajah Harpe, called Big Harpe, I summon you to this place."

I'd summoned spirits before. I'd stood before demon lords as they roared into being in our world from their realm. I'd faced a sorcerer and Valas and Dark Fae and whatever the hell Vlad was. I'd encountered countless ghosts in the form of everything from wraiths to poltergeists and shades and even the odd haint. And I'd already come face-to-face with the rage of Wiley Harpe, one half of a deadly duo who might have been America's earliest known serial killers—though that term seemed inadequate to describe the reign of terror the Harpes had waged on nearly every man, woman, and child who'd crossed their paths.

None of these encounters prepared me for the arrival of Micajah Harpe.

He exploded into our midst and into Carly's binding circle as a hurricane of wrath, dark magic, and enormous power.

However tall Big Harpe had been in life, in death he manifested as a giant well over seven feet tall, with wild, shaggy black hair and the same style of threadbare shirt and trousers Wiley had worn. Like Wiley, his feet were bare. Other than his attire, I saw little resemblance to his cousin. Perhaps the most unnerving difference was while Wiley had rope marks on his wrists, ankles, and throat, Micajah's neck showed that it had been sawed raggedly through and then stitched back together with thick threads of black magic.

Our research indicated he'd been killed and decapitated by vigilantes in 1799. Apparently, the necromancer had reassembled him.

This monstrosity of a man suddenly made my basement feel claustrophobically small. Even his hate was too big for the room.

" HOW DARE YOU! " he roared. Black magic surged, and foul smoke rolled across the floor from inside Carly's binding spell.

Witchy spellwork fractured and broke.

In the time it took for me to realize the binding spell had gone kablooey and think Oh, shit , he'd already smashed into the perimeter of the circle a half-dozen times, moving faster than my human eyes could see. Each impact sent a rumble through the house and strained both Carly's power and my wards, but the circle held…for now.

We'd trapped him, and now we got to deal with the consequences.

His rage and hate fell on us like a rain of hammer blows. I got a close-up of Micajah's huge snarling face just before what felt like a truck smashed into me and sent me tumbling. Maybe he'd tried to jump into me and been repelled by Carly's protective amulet, or maybe his intention was to take us all down one by one like a wrecking ball. Either way, he was way more powerful than Wiley had been, and way more angry.

I ignored the pain of both the hit and the tumble and staggered to my feet just in time to see Sean suffer a similar fate. To my relief, he rolled to his feet smoothly and took a fighting stance.

Micajah ignored Sean and instead plowed through Carly's altar, sending most of its contents flying. A burning candle landed in Katy's lap, but her trance was so deep that she must not have seen it. Sean grabbed the candle and set it upright on the altar cloth.

Meanwhile, Malcolm and Liam flew at Micajah and hit him at the same time, driving him back toward the circle's now-sizzling wards. In response, Micajah tried to rip my sidekick and the man he loved apart with his bare hands.

Instinctively, I made a gesture like tossing a pair of dice and manifested my earth magic whip. I pushed blood magic through the whip and lashed at Micajah. Even if the whip couldn't damage him, I hoped he'd flinch. Sure enough, he dodged the crackling whip, giving Malcolm a chance to grab Liam and get them both clear of his hands. Malcolm appeared intact, but Liam's ghostly form looked partially disintegrated. Malcolm put himself between Liam and Micajah.

Rather than attack the ghosts, Micajah redoubled his efforts to smash through the circle's perimeter with brute force. If those wards failed and we lost this chance, I didn't need to be clairvoyant to know there would be hell to pay—probably literally. Micajah would take his thirst for blood and vengeance out on everyone he could get his hands on.

I didn't want to drop my house wards because we had no idea whether the necromancer was twenty miles away or on the front damn lawn, but the circle had to hold until Liam got a chance to recover and make his move .

I spooled earth magic, grabbed the closest ley line, and slapped my palms to the floor. " Stand ," I commanded.

Power flooded through me into the circle's wards. I choked back a scream as pain whited out my vision. I hadn't had time for finesse when I grabbed the ley line, so I was just going to have to white-knuckle through it.

A shout of fury and a surge of shifter magic made me raise my head just in time to see Sean drive his shoulder into Micajah's chest and shove him back from the circle's perimeter and away from Katy. Screaming curses, Micajah beat Sean with his massive fists, but Sean didn't back off.

Meanwhile, Carly dropped a piece of chalk and stood. She'd scribbled something on the floor that I didn't get a chance to see before she planted her bare feet on top of the spellwork. The air crackled and filled with the scent of burned paper and ozone.

Before my eyes, I saw silver-white vines spiral up and around Carly's feet and ankles. They climbed her body, blazing so brightly that I saw them even under her cloak. I'd never seen any witchcraft like that before. What the hell was she doing?

She and Sean locked gazes and some kind of message passed between them, one warrior to another. I'd seen that look before between Matthias and Arkady, and from Ronan to Lucy in the Broken World.

Sean lowered his head and drove Micajah toward Carly.

The vines reached her shoulders, and her eyes glowed silver-white. I heard a snap like a boat's sail in the wind and the scent of the sea swept through the circle.

I recognized that smell instantly and got the urge to back away. Instead, I held my ground and kept my palms flat on the floor so the flow of power to the circle's wards didn't break.

Maybe Micajah sensed the threat behind him was now much greater than the one in front, because he twisted in midair to face Carly. His face appeared dark gray with the force of his fury and hate.

When he got within arm's length, she raised her hand where it had been hidden at her side and drove her obsidian dagger hilt-deep into his gut.

His howl shook our house. He tried to pull out the dagger but his hand passed through it. How a dagger could wound a spirit, I didn't know, but it was yet another reason to respect Carly's magic.

"Creature who calls himself Micajah Harpe," Carly's voice sounded like a thousand voices speaking at once. "Your presence here is an abomination to all Creation."

"I don't obey the laws of any god or man," Micajah snarled into Carly's serene face. "I am my own mighty god."

In response, she twisted the dagger deeper into his belly. "You are neither mighty nor God," the Archangel Uriel said through Carly. "You are damned."

Micajah grinned and straightened, his shoulders back and head held high. "The cursed and the damned are rising, witch woman. Can't you hear it on the wind? Don't you see it in the sky? Don't you feel it in your blood?"

My sense of awe at being in Uriel's presence turned to dread. "Carly—Uriel—that's not Micajah talking."

"I do not speak to Micajah," Uriel said without sparing me a glance. "I speak to the one who uses his mouth."

In other words, he knew damn well this was the necromancer talking to us.

"Send this one back where he belongs," the necromancer said of Micajah, his tone dismissive. "I don't have any use for him anymore. I need men and women with intelligence and patience. Cunning people who'll take orders and aren't more interested in slaughter and rape than power."

"Why?" I asked through gritted teeth. The pain from the ley line was excruciating.

Like Uriel, Micajah didn't bother to look at me, but he answered my question. "A new king rises, and I intend to be one of his generals."

Sean and I exchanged glances. Charles? he mouthed .

That wasn't an unreasonable guess, but my gut said Charles wasn't the would-be king the necromancer seemed so enthusiastic about serving. I shook my head.

Sean's scowl deepened. The only thing worse than this kind of looming threat was to not know who was behind it.

We did have some clues, though. I slid a peek at Katy, who still hadn't looked up from her bowl. Something woke up , she'd told Carly. Black magic practitioners were gaining power and boldness, if this necromancer was anything to go by. And it looked like the killing spree of Micajah and Wiley Harpe was only one of the little rumblings Katy had mentioned.

I went back to my thought from a few days ago about the timing of Valas's apparent death and the waking Katy had described. What kinds of evils had the evil we'd known held at bay?

Micajah began to laugh. It was the same laugh I'd heard just hours ago on the black plains of Tartarus, coming from the hooded necromancer.

"Be gone, abomination," Uriel said. "I return this foulness to his eternal torment."

Again, our basement filled with that snapping sound. Micajah vanished. Malcolm and Liam flitted in alarm.

The silver-white magic vines around Carly faded. She slumped into Sean's arms, conscious but clearly dazed.

Meanwhile, Katy nodded slowly at the surface of her bowl as if responding to someone who'd spoken to her. Her unfocused eyes moved from her bowl to the floor on her right. She picked up a piece of chalk and scrawled words on the concrete.

I craned my neck to read the message: Tomorrow morning at 10. Fields Park, north gate. Come alone, Alice Worth.

Katy dropped the chalk, blinked several times, and focused on what remained of the altar she and Carly had set up so carefully. Her shock turned to dismay and then her face crumpled. She scrambled to her feet and ran into Carly's waiting arms. Sean held them both .

"He called me his dark angel ," she sobbed into Carly's shoulder. "He had no right."

I wasn't sure what about that phrase Katy found so upsetting, but it must have evoked something from her past.

Carly stroked Katy's long pink hair. "No, he didn't have the right to call you his anything," she said, and held Katy's head against her chest.

With the danger apparently past, I let go of the ley line. The sudden absence of pain left me lightheaded. Everything went hazy.

I half rolled, half flopped onto my back with my knees raised to catch my breath and let the pain, dizziness, and nausea pass. The circle's power faded until only Carly and Katy's parchment-scented witchy magic remained. Even that normally reassuring scent didn't do much to ease my anger and worry.

At least Liam hadn't had to take Micajah back to Tartarus after all, thanks to Uriel. That was about the only silver lining I could see out of this whole mess.

Also, we'd just been in the presence of an almighty archangel and how was that not even in the top ten things I would remember about this day? How did a day that started with an exorcism go downhill from there?

"Alice, you okay?" Malcolm sounded as unhappy as I felt, but he was holding Liam's hand and they were so cute together that it was a balm for my aching heart.

I wasn't, but I said, "Yup" and sat up with a groan. I looked around my basement workshop, at the scattered contents of Carly's altar, smeared and broken spellwork, and five ritual participants who all wore nearly identical expressions that asked the same question: What now?

My gaze went to the piece of parchment on which Carly had written Micajah's name in Sean's blood. The parchment had turned dark brown with blackened edges, as if something or someone had tried to burn it but not quite succeeded .

What now, indeed?

In the end, it was Carly who answered our unspoken question. "It's time to clean up," she said, her voice brisk. "And then we will sleep. Thanks to Uriel and Hecate, we've survived to fight another day."