Bitter Magic - Chapter 4

BITTER MAGIC
Demon Trappers Series Book 9

FOUR
​

​Something magical bumped against Riley’s mind and she opened her eyes, blinked, then slowly sat up. The cemetery was as dark as one would expect in the middle of the night. Darker, because the streetlights near the parking lot were out. They hadn’t been that way when she and Katia had gone to sleep.

Another tap on her mind, though this time it was more like someone shoving on a locked door rather than politely knocking.

“Katia?” The journeyman was upright in a heartbeat, which said she hadn’t been sleeping soundly. “We have company.”

“The necro?”
“Yes. Best to let whoever they are do their thing. We’re fine as long as we’re inside the circle.”

There was the crinkle of plastic as Katia took a long swig from her water bottle. “Do you recognize the magic?”

“Same as last night.”

“Back for more, then.”

Except this time, she was here.

The summoner floated out of the dark, skimming just above the grass. It was an impressive blending of glamour and illusionary magic, all black flowing robe and distant thunder. Hollywood would have loved it. He, or she, hadn’t bothered to look like Alex. This time it was Mortimer Alexander.

“Dumb move,” she muttered.

Riley pushed through the glamour and a faint impression returned. Male, maybe forty or so. He came to a halt a few feet from the Holy circle, his eyes on her and then moved his attention to Katia.

“Your name is not Susan. You lied to me,” he said.

“Seemed only fair since you lied to me,” she replied, steel pipe in her hand now. Protective circle or not, Katia Breman was always prepared.

The necro frowned at her. “I do not like liars.”

“Oh, the irony,” she replied, then yawned. “Don’t you have something better to do than creep around graveyards in the middle of the night?”

Riley chuckled. “That is kind of the default setting for summoners, actually.”

The necro’s attention shifted to her now, along with a more insistent mental shove. She batted it back like a tennis ball causing the sender to blink in surprise.

“Don’t be rude,” she said. “You have no claim to this corpse. You need to leave. You know it’s a violation of the summoner oath to reanimate the dead without their permission.”

It was one of the first rules you learned when you began your training, and it was pounded into your head from then on just in case you hadn’t been paying attention the first, or the tenth time.

“And if I have permission?” he asked slyly.

“Then we wouldn’t be sitting vigil over the late Mr. Means.”

“Who are you to challenge me?”

“I’m Summoner Blackthorne. I’m also a master demon trapper. And who are you?”
The smug expression didn’t fade. “No one you would know. But you will after tonight.”

His spell struck the circle hard, causing the protective sphere to flare bright white as it repelled the onslaught.

“Not happening!” Riley said, immediately reinforcing the sphere.

For a time there was a give-and-take of magic, though Riley already knew that this guy was much stronger. The Holy Water circle was all that kept him at bay.

As if he’d come to the same conclusion, the summoner abruptly changed tactics and spat out a single word that made her ears throb in time to her heartbeat. A rumbling came from behind them, but she didn’t dare break her concentration to see what was happening.

“The grave’s opening!” Katia cried out.

“What?” Riley spun around to find Means’ plot churning like a team of energetic moles had taken residence. “That’s impossible!”

The dirt blew straight up, then pummeled down onto them in fat red chunks. A large piece smacked into Katia, and she crouched down, belatedly covering her head. A sharp crack broke the vault’s lid into pieces and then the casket lid flew straight up out of the hole and against the Holy Water circle like a guided missile. The impact blew the ward apart. Dirt and pieces of the casket’s lining rained down around them. As the debris settled Means climbed out of his grave, then looked around, confused.

“You’re mine now. Get over here,” the necro said, waving him forward.

The dead man marched away from his grave, surprisingly quick for a corpse, ignoring Katia’s feeble attempt to grab him. Means had barely cleared the remnants of the circle before he and the summoner went skyward in an acrid cloud of blue-black smoke.

“Oh, no,” Riley muttered.

​※※※

​Purple and black arcs of magic seethed around them, making Katia’s head roar and her chest tight. Riley was on her knees, her head bent, blood dripping from her nose. Some of that strange purple undulated across her master’s fingers as she reached toward the ground. The moment she touched it, the magic flowed downward into the earth.

Katia’s eyesight faded as the pounding in her skull increased. She lost her balance, falling forward, palms skidding in the grass. It was then she felt it, the persistent tug of the earth. To her astonishment, the spell’s magic flowed down her arms and through her fingers. As much as it hurt, she forced herself to stay connected with the ground, not allowing her fingers to curl in agony. Instead, she dug deep into the grass and then into the dirt.

Her body seemed to crackle as wave after wave of the powerful spell searched for an outlet. Whatever was inside her was beyond description, like someone had stuffed her full of fireworks and then lit them off all at once. She swore she saw intricate patterns in the purple mist and could hear the earth groan as the magic descended into it.

There was a low moan. It had come from her. Another moan, this one from Riley. Time passed, though she had no idea how long. There was only the endless rippling agony.

“That’s it, just let it go,” her master said from somewhere near her. “I’m sorry I can’t make it go away any faster.”

“Hurts.”

“Yes, it does. Why didn’t you tell me you knew how to ground a spell?”

“I . . . don’t.”

Katia’s head bowed even more, connecting with the grass and the earth now. With her skin touching the soil, more of the magic pushed its way out of her, pulse by painful pulse.
Time passed. Hours. Decades. And still the purple flowed out of her.

“You taught her how to ground a spell?” That was Mort’s voice.

“No,” Riley replied.

“You didn’t?”
“No,” Riley repeated, this time with more emphasis.

With a great deal of effort Katia raised her head to find the senior summoner kneeling on the other side of her. Some distance away was the older summoner, the strange one with the sigil on his forehead. Lord Ozymandias. Above him bobbed a glowing orb, a match to the one that hovered above Mort.

“Here, you need this,” Riley said, holding out a few tissues. “Your nose is bleeding.”

Katia managed to sit up, then she jammed the tissues against her face.

God, my head hurts so bad. The worst hangover in her life—the night of her senior prom and too much tequila—was just a mild ache compared to this.

“You didn’t show her how to ground the backlash,” Mort said, as if that needed repeating yet again.

“I didn’t have time. The circle just blew apart. From the inside.”

His lordship swiveled around now, staring directly at Katia.

“Journeyman Breman, do you have any magical talent in your family?”

Did she? “No. Not like you guys.” She was tempted to blow her nose to clear it, but something told her that wouldn’t be wise. As it was, it burned as if someone had poured acid into both nostrils.

“And yet you see angels,” Ozymandias said.

“They glow really bright. Hard to miss them.”
​
Then his lordship was right in front of her, eyeing her intently. “Then how did you know how to ground the backlash?”

She guessed that was what had nearly blown her head off. “I saw Riley doing it. I figured I could give it a try. I just had to get that stuff out of me.”

“Ohhh . . . ” Mort murmured. He shot a surprised look at the senior summoner, and a nod returned.

“I can relieve you of the headache if you permit me to touch you,” Ozymandias said.
“Ah, sure. Go for it. I swear my eyes are about to fall out.” At least her nose had finally stopped bleeding.

“Close them for me.”

When she complied there was a faint touch at the center of her forehead and then the agony melted away.

Her eyes snapped open. “Oh, God, that’s better,” she said, blinking in astonishment. “Thank you.”

“You think she’s a chaîne?” Mort asked.

“Must be, though there aren’t that many of those around.”

“A what?” Riley asked.

“Chaîne. The word is French and means, well, chain,” Mort said.

As much as she appreciated that her head no longer hurt so bad, Katia didn’t like being left out of the conversation. “Ah, sorry, but right now you’re making zip sense.”

“A chaîne or channel is someone who can ground spells, and in this case, a backlash, like what you just went through,” Mort explained. “But that person is usually incapable of performing magic. It’s an odd trade off.”

“Okay, so I did a thing. No clue how, but all that glowing purple stuff is now pretty much gone. What’s the big deal?”

Mort rose and then dusted off his robe, thinking through his response.

“The big deal is that you managed to offload the blowback of an immensely powerful spell. That’s impressive, especially without training.”

“Go me,” she said, and winced again. The headache was better, but her muscles felt like she’d run a marathon. Riley looked like she felt the same.

“When this all settles down we’ll put you in touch with someone who can help you with this ability. There is some . . . training involved,” Ozymandias said. He traded a look with Mort. There was a lot not being said about this so-called training.

“Ohhhkay.”

She’d just wanted to watch over a dead guy and earn some money. It should have been no big deal, at least until the corpse thief had ruined the whole thing.

“How could that necro pull Means out of his grave when the circle was up?” she asked.
Riley shook her head, then winced at the move. “Don’t know. I have a lot of questions about this whole gig.”

“We all do. I’ll notify the widow,” Mort said. “As Summoner Advocate it’s my job to deal with this kind of thing.”

“Even if the summoner isn’t a local?” Katia asked.

“Even then. To the public we are all one and the same—grave robbers. This will only reinforce that stereotype once the news gets out.”

“Is Alex still at Lady Torin’s? I don’t want him blamed for this,” Riley asked.

“He is. He’s safe there. No one messes with her.”

Lord Ozymandias turned his back on them again, staring off into the distance as if trying to sense where their thief had fled.

“I think Means knew this was going to happen,” Katia said as she stood on wobbly legs. It took a bit to get herself steady. “He just popped out of that grave like it’d been all planned. Or maybe it was because the necro put a spell on him or something.”

“If he arranged his reanimation, his widow should have known about it,” Mort said. “There’s loads of paperwork that has to be signed and notarized beforehand.”

“It appears we have a mystery,” Ozymandias said. He cocked his head. “This might be a good time for me to depart. I have . . . inquiries to make. We’ll have another meeting this morning at nine.”

Then he was simply gone.

Katia’s mouth dropped open, though the others didn’t seem bothered by the summoner’s abrupt exit. Had he even been here for real? Before she could ask that question, she heard the slamming of car doors as voices rose from the parking lot. One voice was familiar and decidedly angry.

“Oh no, that’s Means’ widow,” she said. “This is so not a good thing.”

As the lady marched down the hill from the lot, an older man at her side, she demanded, “Where is he? Why didn’t you protect him?”
“How does she know her husband had been corpse-napped?” Riley asked, keeping her voice low. Not that the approaching pair would hear them with all the noise Mrs. Means was generating.

“That’s a very good question,” Mort replied.

When she finally reached them, he took the lead, his expression solemn.

“Mrs. Means? I’m Mortimer Alexander, the Summoner Advocate for the City of Atlanta. I am deeply sorry to say that your husband’s body has been . . . reanimated without permission.”

“I know!” She glared at him, then turned to the man next to her. “Take pictures of this atrocity. My poor Albie has been stolen and someone will pay for this.”

The word “pay” stood out more than all the rest.

“I was just about to notify you. How did you find out this happened?” Mort asked.

“Someone called me. Told me my husband of thirty-two years had been stolen. It’s an outrage! An outrage!” she said, launching a fist into the air for emphasis.

The only person who could have notified the widow was the guy who stole the corpse. Why would he bother?

“Oh, great,” Riley murmured as a patrol car pulled into the lot.

Knowing this was going to take forever with the cops involved, Katia began to collect her gear.
“You! Stop! Don’t touch anything. This is a crime scene.”

She would have expected that warning to come from the cops, but instead it was the man who’d arrived with the widow.

“I’m getting my cellphone,” she said, ignoring the dude. She found it a few feet away and fortunately her habit of buying an extra tough case had saved the thing from being so much scrap. After blowing off the dirt, she swiped the screen and it came to life. “Thank you!” she whispered.

Her eyes returned to the grave, or what remained of it. It was a wreck, the flowers strewn in all directions, though the temporary name plaque had somehow weathered the destruction. As she reached over to pick up her water bottle, she found the widow in her face.

“What are you hiding?” the woman demanded.

She sorta felt sorry for the lady, but that sympathy was nearly gone.

“I’m getting my water bottle, okay?”

“You sure that’s just water? Have you been drinking? That’d be about right. Drinking and not paying attention. Not keeping my husband safe.”

Don’t scream at the widow, don’t scream at the widow, don’t--

“Mrs. Means,” Mortimer called out. “The police would like to talk to you.”

With a huff the woman headed toward the cops, both of whom looked like they wanted to be anywhere else. Katia knew how that felt. As Mrs. Means carried on, and on, she rejoined her master. They both sank down into the grass, exhausted from the magical assault and all the drama.

“This is going to be bad,” Riley said, keeping her voice down. “Cops don’t usually get called out on these kinds of things. It’s always an internal summoner matter.”

Katia shot a glance at the widow’s companion. “And her buddy’s filming all this with his phone. Look at her, she’s wearing makeup.” She glanced down at her own phone’s display. “At two-thirty in the morning? And those clothes? If someone called me to say my husband’s body had been stolen, I’d throw on the first thing I could find and run my ass right out the door. I swear she knew this was going to happen.” Then it hit her why. “I bet there’s going to be a lawsuit. Wait and see.”

“Yup,” was Riley’s only reply. And even that single word held a sharp edge of barely restrained anger.

It took another quarter hour before the Widow and her henchman left the cemetery. By that point she’d been nasty to Mort, accused her and Riley of all sorts of ugly stuff, then started in on the cops. It was at that point her buddy suggested they leave. Riley and Katia rejoined the others as the car pulled out of the parking lot. There was a group sigh of relief.

“Sorry about that. Unfortunately, it comes with the job,” Mort said.

“Same here,” one of the officers replied. He looked over at them now. “You’re Riley Blackthorne. I remember you from that demon attack downtown. The one near the capital. You were with some dude with wings.”

“That was me.”

“Do you usually grave sit?”

“No. Katia had a problem here last night while watching over this grave. Same summoner. Tonight, he came back for seconds. I thought being here might make a difference. It didn’t.”

The cops traded looks. “We’ll need to get a statement from you ladies.”

“Could you also do a couple quick breathalyzer tests as well?” Mort asked.

“What?” Katia said. “We weren’t drinking.”

“I know. But this way it’ll go in the official report. Never hurts to be thorough in case someone decides to make an accusation down the line.”

“Exactly,” the older officer replied, nodding.

“Go for it,” Riley said.

After the tests, which proved neither of them had bothered with any booze, the younger officer led Katia away from the others and started asking a lot of questions. He was cute, in a cop sort of way, but still his questions rankled.

“Anything else you can tell me about why this evening went wrong?”

“Not really. The circle should not have broken. Master Blackthorne was reinforcing it. But then the coffin exploded, and Means was outta here,” she said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder. “No way that should have happened.”

The officer looked over at the grave, then back at her. “Is there any reason that Master Blackthorne would want this body to be taken?”

Katia was a second away from roasting the guy, then realized he might be trying to help. “No reason at all, because anything that happens with her is big news. The last thing she wants is any more publicity.”

The officer nodded in agreement. “Okay, that’s it for now. If there are any other questions, a detective will contact you.”

“Thanks. Sorry you got stuck with this.”

He rolled his eyes. “Same for you.”

As the police inspected the desecrated grave with Mort, her boss angled her head toward the parking lot. They headed up the hill, toting their gear.

“Your butt-kicking headache will be back in a few hours,” Riley warned. “Drink a lot of water. It’ll help. Sorta.” She glanced back as the three men stared at the open grave. “I am so glad I was here tonight.”

“Me too.”

If not, Master Blackthorne might have been on the phone to Katia’s parents with the astonishing news that their eldest daughter had gotten herself snuffed during a grave robbery. One thing for sure, her obituary would have been front page news back home.
​

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BITTER MAGIC



​Bitter Magic
Demon Trappers® Series Book 9
Copyright ©2024 Jana Oliver

Angel Wing Graphic used with permission of Macmillan Children’s Books
Cover image courtesy of JoY Author Designs
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