Dangerous, Diabolical

A week passed, and Willow found more and more bizarre stories about the zombie apocalypse. The only common denominator was, as Leofstan had said, supernaturals without many defensive abilities.

Pity.

After the stories had finally reached her ears, it was difficult to separate which tales might be linked to the so-called ‘dead rising’, compared to ones that were made up. Amongst the more boring ones, deciphering if the spell cast may have been on purpose by witch cultists, or other things with necromantic tendencies, was near impossible.

To be frank, so many people died under weird circumstances or then turned out to be not dead, that I wasn’t too concerned with keeping track. Like most reporters or investigations the SPCC would eventually grow bored or over-saturated, and turn their interests to something else.

It certainly wasn’t worth losing sleep over.

My day began with a very sharp stab to the back, waking me from a fitful sleep. Even whilst dreaming, the image of the gems was imprinted into my closed eyes. In the quiet dead of night, I swore I could hear their whispering to be picked up, Leofstans dream hand offering them out endlessly. No matter how many times I took them from him, there were always more.

With a second stab to the back, I groaned, pulling a gold crown free from my bed sheets and propping it back on the corner of the headboard. Solid gold, containing a whole spectrum of precious stones set in, it was one of my favourite pieces of my hoard. Unsure how I’d managed to miss hiding it away I made a mental note to move it later.

The first duty of the day was making my house reach acceptable standards, and that meant cleaning the overdue fish tank and finding a home for the crown. The whole tank took me almost two hours. It wasn’t overly large but my attention span quickly went from cleaning, to; shiny shiny fishes, to cleaning, to pretty pretty scales. I sighed. They were so pretty the way they caught the light, and they were much too small to even consider eating.

To polish the aquarium off and make sure they felt spoilt, I retrieved the gold crown to set in the rocks as a new display for the week, removing a laughing Buddha and giving him a rub on his tummy for luck.

After I was satisfied fish were swimming around the new accessory, I made breakfast. Branching out, a lamb was on the menu. The bone marrow from the creature wasn’t my favourite, but the bone thickness was pleasing.

Combined with the smell of meat, the glorious air freshener had begun to seep into the very brick of the house itself. Content I wrapped up warm and sat on the patio step in my garden, the chains of the necklaces entwined in my fingers, and the rest of breakfast.

Miraculously overgrown, flowers tangled into each other creating a small patch of natural beauty I could call my own.

It also made it more difficult for the local wildlife to dig up any wayward carcasses.

Or for the neighbours to notice.

As I bit through the last bone with a satisfying crack, my toes wigged as a pleasant beam of sunlight caressed my skin.

My hand rolled the red stone necklace in what had become a very irritating habit. On the surface I couldn’t pry any secrets from it, I could feel the magic in it, but if it wasn’t for Leofstan’s word I wouldn’t have had a clue what it did. The spell cast on it was so disgustingly neat, it put anything I could do to shame.

My mind drifted to Leofstan and the other stone. I held it to the light, watching the beams scatter through the heart. Emerald, a beacon charm. Red, a warning charm. Both he linked to himself. Did he have a way to sever them if they went astray? It was impossible to even comprehend how something that complicated could be spun.

Would I endlessly dream about them, wondering what secrets they held? I had to find out and it was now or never.

Pushing a string of raw power into the red stone it immediately grew hot on my palm, causing the flesh to sizzle. Suddenly, and in hindsight, it unsurprisingly backlashed. The magic reacted against the forced unintended use with a gigantic BOOM. The echoes of the spell - a shatter of clattering horns, the dew of rain on a grassy field and the smell of crushed leaves - exploded into the air.

Birds scattered from the trees.

“Whoa.” I whistled, dazed. My head rang, the sound still echoed within me, vibrating from clenched fingertips. It was so powerful the scent of Leofstans magic was unmarred by my attempts.

Intriguing… blasting it with power must have done something, the gem heating up signified a reaction. Combined with merely upsetting the air with my power signature, the outcome was rather uninspiring.

After Leofstan had cast the gems in my house it had been six days before the scent had even started to fade under the air fresheners, and I was still unsure as to whether I was becoming noise blind and used to the smell. The small burst I’d just sent out wasn’t even distinguishable.

Following a week of cradling the gems, it was becoming clear if I wanted to even pull apart a small secret from it, I’d need to replicate that level of power. Unstable as my spell casting was, powering up right outside my house would not only light a beacon of how strong I was, but it may light my house on fire. If a small spark had burnt my hand it wasn’t worth taking chances.

I’d have to find somewhere more private.

As the afternoon rolled over I was equipped with hiking boots and a thermal coat, a torch and a metal decanter, trudging through Willow’s woodland. She wouldn’t mind me in her territory and I was here often enough that the other inhabitants wouldn’t notice the obscurity in passing.

As with all the Faery lands, the courts hid their boundaries from the wider world, knights watched from the darkness to ensure no unwelcome came close. Having been caught in several of their traps before - funnily enough - which led to meeting Willow, they no longer cast their traps to consider me a suitable target. After stumbling into the Faery lands once, blasting a multitude of guards and villages to smithereens, I was promptly sent home with an apology and renewed respect from the fair folk.

Willow had transported me to this side, and we’d found a lot in common on the trek home, staying in touch ever since.

As the day wore on, birds sang their final songs as dusk settled in. With each breath I let my lungs expand bigger and bigger. I wasn’t tired, my lung capacity was huge and it was very rare I got the chance to draw air so deep.

Using my tongue to sample the night air, rolling the scents around, I found a spot undiscovered by any people. That was the true beauty of a Faery forest, humans couldn’t go where they weren’t wanted, and something you could always rely on with the fair folk was secrets.

I scrubbed the ground with my foot overturning dirt to check for residual magic, before settling on a mossy patch to await a high moon. Channelling magic required a clear mind and strong concentration, so I waited trying to keep my thoughts on revealing hidden secrets from the necklaces.

According to TV, the key to self-centring the mind and body was to sit crossed-legged, palms rested on the knees. Shuffling into the seated pose and centring the green gem between my palms a quiet relief emanated.

I was finally scratching that itch that had plagued me all week. In the cool glow of the moonlight, my querying magic was pushed into the smooth stone. At first the imprints of how Leofstan attached his spell knitted around mine; the webbed labyrinth of power holding fast and adapting. This had been created with an element of the earth, something truly beyond me. I grunted in frustration as I pushed deeper, my power of fire trying to discover, not destroy.

Guessing the main brain of the enchantment was the strongest spot of his will, I pressed my magic against his like a thick sludge in those areas. Worrying they might break and disappear and I’d learn nothing if picked at, it seemed like a smarter approach.

Even with the extra mojo I still couldn’t understand what, or how Leofstan had prepared this stone to directly link to him, or how he intended it to alert him.

My incessant coating didn’t seem to dilute his spell in any form, except now it was as if the power thrumming in the gem was beating inside of my brain. Each beat commanded my attention, until before long every exhale and inhale was paced to match.

It was a stalemate. I’d matched the power he’d placed into it and yet I still understood nothing.

Snarling, I pushed even more raw power into the spots I’d coated.

At first, it bounced off.

Heat soared into the air, burning into my nostrils. The faint sound of crackling foliage tickled my eats. Ignoring it, I tried again, pushing deeper. The stone began to shriek, the bitter cry pulsing with every beat.

The air grew hotter.

I pushed more, the specks of power growing, swirling and darkening. “More!” I whispered channeling into it. The hot bite in the air stung my face, my nose clogged with smoke and my hair whipped across my face.

Something was happening!

I gave one last push.

The necklace ripped itself free of my hands, I flung my eyes open as I was unseated, the connection to the ground lost. For a brief second the world flashed past before with a dull thunk my back slammed into a tree.

No! I was wrong!

The necklace hadn’t moved, it was me! It shimmered weightlessly where I had left it; the air distorting in the clearing.

Oh shit.

The beat pulsed in my head, on each thrum a small wave of power burst free of the levitating jewellery. My eyes were transfixed, all around I could feel the burning embers falling from their leafy victims but it was impossible to turn away from the pull of power.

Now that was some mojo.

Much like a stringed puppet, each wave caused me to jolt closer, placing awkward steps. Even if I could’ve run in the opposite direction, I wasn’t sure I would.

It remained hovering, suspended by power. My hand reached out as if being seduced. For a moment as the thrum lulled, I paused. Was it a good idea to touch a hovering necklace in the middle of a magically saturated forest clearing?

The necklace gave a wavering twitch as the desire faded. I reclaimed my hand back slightly.

This was way out of my depth. I hadn’t found anything I’d wanted, and now all sorts of weird things were happening. Maybe it would just calm itself down if I left it. But… the power… I opened my hand again...

It launched itself at me.

“Argh!” I screamed, body jolting back, hand remaining bolted. The chain coiled around my arm. “Arghhhh!” I roared, trying to rip it off with my free hand. The skin sizzled. My fingers clutched helplessly as it continued to burn deeper. For each section of chain I ripped from flesh, another sank.

“Shit shit!” I cried, vision creeping into darkness around the edges. In one last desperate attempt, my claws exploded out, ripping under the gem in my palm, only to powerlessly watch it become reclaimed by my own body. My vision dimmed further. Blood trickled over the grass.

“Ack!” One last gasp escaped desperately as my knees buckled.

What the hell? Was the last thought that accompanied me into the darkness.

* * *