Chapter 21 Hector
HECTOR
Icouldn’t take my eyes off Kai’s lifeless body. It was laid out across two joined tables, as naked as the day he was born.
Romy set up a thick circle of candles around his body, as Arwyn got to work stripping and then cleaning Kai with a bottle of vodka mixed with water. I distracted myself by setting the corners with the items I’d collected.
I placed a bowl of water, a pile of soil, and a lidded mason jar of my breath in their relevant positions. Considering all the candles had been used, I concluded that representing the element of fire had already been ticked off the list.
“Are we ready?” Arwyn asked from where he stood east of Kai’s corpse.
No, I thought. “Yes,” I said.
“I am.” Romy was so focused a worry line had set in over her eyes. She stood within the circle of candles, down by Kai’s feet, her fingers never straying far from touching him. It wouldn’t surprise me if her sheer will alone had the power to claw Kai’s spirit out of Bahmet’s clutches.
If that was even a possibility.
Arwyn offered Romy a warm but fleeting smile, one that drew out into a line when his gaze settled back on me. Our unspoken secret between us lingered. I gave him a swift nod, reminding him I knew what price had to be paid, and I would see it done for Romy.
“Then let’s begin.” Arwyn rolled his shoulders back and closed his eyes. “Romy, would you do the honours?”
A wave of heat coursed around us. Every wick on every candle erupted in flame, sparking with a snap as her birth element engulfed the room.
Just as Arwyn hoped for, the candles would act as a beacon for a spirit to follow home. The pub’s barroom was illuminated in an angelic glow. The light cast our shadows across the stone walls like some horrific puppet show.
A shiver ran over my damp, aching skin.
Arwyn was next to connect to his element.
With a knife I had found behind the bar, he lifted it over Kai’s heart and sunk the tip into his cleaned flesh.
I winced as skin parted. Beads of ruby blood blossomed where he cut, leaking down Kai’s prominent ribs.
With careful hands I knew too well, Arwyn carved a rune-mark atop his heart.
Having memorised the runic alphabet from Eleanor Letcombe’s grimoire, I knew what Arwyn was painting on Kai’s skin. Raidho, the rune for travel or journey.
“I cast this rune for safe travels. May you find light in the shadowlands, and return home,” Arwyn announced, voice clear as a summer’s day. “So mote it be.”
“Return home,” Romy and I echoed. “So mote it be.”
When Arwyn was done, he flipped the handle of the knife and handed it across to me.
I took it, fingers trembling as I guided the bloodied tip to Kai’s forehead.
To be honest, I’d never been good at drawing. I was the type of child that grabbed a crayon and scribbled more outside the lines than inside. It took firmed focus to make sure I was carving the correct rune upon Kai’s forehead, just north of the bridge of his nose.
Eihwaz, the rune for death, transformations, change and renewal.
I cleared my throat, nervous for what was to follow. “I cast this rune to acknowledge death, with the intention of renewal. May transformation bless you, Kai, may change welcome you, may death return you. So mote it be.”
“May death return you,” Arwyn and Romy echoed once I was done. “So mote it be.”
Romy was ready to take the knife from me, reaching over with deft fingers and practically snatching it out of my possession.
From my vantage point I couldn’t see as she cut into the soles of Kai’s two feet, but I knew the runes Romy was casting.
Inguz to represent beginnings and a new phase, and Dagaz for success.
“I cast—” Romy choked. “I cast this rune for new beginnings. May you find the strength required to accept the second chance at life.” Tears rolled down her cheeks, falling upon Kai’s smooth skin.
“And I cast the rune for success. May you not fail me, may you not fail yourself, and may you not fail your coven. So mote it be.”
The knife clattered to the floor as Romy sagged over Kai’s legs, leaning her forehead across his thigh. “Please, Kai. Find us, follow the light and come back.”
Arwyn reached over and laid a gentle hand on Romy’s shoulder, his thumb moving slowly to comfort her.
“We’re almost done,” he said, voice sure and soft. “Keep faith for a little while longer.”
His care with Romy, his encouraging voice and the way his expression crumpled as he too recognised the pain of someone else’s suffering, made my insides melt. Arwyn looked up and caught me staring over Romy, regret heavy in his once bright eyes.
Although Arwyn didn’t speak, I could hear what he had said to me repeat in the back of my mind.
“Necromancy requires a great sacrifice. The old texts suggest a life for a life, but since we haven’t got the time to go searching for a Hunter to take that place, that leaves us at yet another crossroads. ”
A life for a life, or something of greater value.
“Ashes to ashes,” I began, drawing both of their attention. If I didn’t start in that moment I didn’t think I could see this through.
Old magic, although a useful tool, was still a dull and unused one. There was no saying what trickery we were walking into.
Romy righted herself, the whites of her eyes bloodshot, her back hunched from the weight of her grief.
Arwyn returned to his position, lifting two hands on either side of him.
We all did the same. I closed my eyes as I opened myself up to untapped power, letting it overtake my body as I led the chant.
“Ashes to ashes,
Dust to dust,
Earth to earth,
I call for you.
Life to life,
Heart to heart,
Shadow to shadow,
I conjure you.
Death to death,
Pain to pain,
Gift to gift,
I welcome you.”
An unnatural gust billowed around our circle.
I creaked an eye open as Arwyn and Romy recited the chant, to watch as flames danced, bending in tandem with the stream of air until it formed a single ribbon of heat that surrounded us.
The ground trembled beneath our feet, dust rising from the floor until it blurred the vision of the room beyond us.
“Bahmet,” I whispered beneath the roar of magic. “I have something you want.”
From beyond the protective layer of elements, I heard the faint clip of hooves against stone. Glowing eyes of brimstone and fury flashed from the shadows as a ram-horned head stepped free of the darkness slowly.
The demon lord had been waiting for this very moment.
“Well, would you look at this,” Bahmet sang, praise lingering in his voice like a pleased father.
The demon lord looked around the pub, drinking it in with his boiling gaze.
“When I felt you tug on the threads of my reality, I never thought it was possible you could actually make anything from it. And it feels so… real. I must say that I am equally as impressed as I am perplexed.”
“You know why I have called you here then?” I asked, choosing to ignore his praise and the unwanted warmth it made me feel inside.
“Yes, actually. I do. The day has finally come that you have sought after me for a bargain.” Bahmet’s hot breath whispered into my ear, and yet the demon was nowhere near me.
“Although I was not expecting this moment so soon. It took Eleanor Letcombe years of my whisperings and promises for her to finally request my aid. Here you are not but hours into these games… already desperate for me.”
The demon’s sultry tone turned my stomach inside out.
“You killed Kai for this very interaction you hoped so desperately for,” I replied, knowing that Romy and Arwyn couldn’t hear me because of whatever dark spell Bahmet had blanketed over the two of us. “All of this is your doing.”
“The Drowning killed him,” Bahmet corrected.
“Do you like the sound of your own voice when you lie?”
Bahmet’s deep chuckle ruptured over my skin, sending every hair to standing. “You called, and I have answered. So, what will it be, Hector Briar? Are you prepared to ask me to bargain? The power you have taken from me, for the man whose life I have taken from you?”
Said ‘dark power’ flooded through my veins at the demon’s proximity. Simply mentioning it conjured a response that felt like a snake rising from a wicker basket.
“I am going to ask you to release Kai’s spirit.”
Bahmet tilted his head. “Little tip. When bargaining you must offer something in return.”
I steadied myself. “Give him back.”
“All this incessant chanting and irritable display of old magic is pointless if his spirit is not free to traverse back to his vessel?” Bahmet asked, although we both already knew the answer.
“So, let us cut to the chase. Offer me something and I will see if it is worth what you are asking me to do.”
“Name your price,” I said, ignoring his jibe.
“My power. Back to me. You know this, Hector,” Bahmet huffed, mist steaming from his animalistic nostrils.
I sensed, deep in my marrow, that the demon was repulsed by the shield of old magic that encased us.
“Seems a risky trade, no?”
“Risks are worth their weight in gold. However, we both know I cannot have it unless you give it up willingly.” Bahmet paced closer to the shield of magic, wincing as he lifted a gloved hand towards it.
“I know that’s why you have called for me.
Because you are I are one and the same. Once two peas in a pod, now separated.
Deny it all you wish, but you think the way I do. ”
I took his words as confirmation that the distrust bubbling beneath the surface of my flesh shouldn’t be ignored.
“Do you even have Kai’s spirit?” I asked, praying the answer wasn’t the one I didn’t one to hear.
“Are you asking if it still lingers, or if it has been repurposed?”
“Do. You. Have. Him.”
Bahmet’s deep chuckle rose out first, followed by the confirmation I sought. “I do.”
I smiled, unable to stop myself from hiding my true emotions. “Good.” I exhaled, turning my attention back to Kai’s body. “Then I have no need for you here.”
“Are you dismissing me, Hector Briar?”
“I am.” I forced all the strength of my old magic into my words. “Be gone.”
In a puff of smoke Bahmet vanished. I could practically feel the fucker’s nails sinking into my reality, trying to claw his way back here and demand answers to why I had summoned him.
In truth, I did it because I had to make sure my sacrifice wouldn’t be for nothing. If Kai’s spirit was already lost, it would’ve been too late. A waste. But no doubt Bahmet sensed something was wrong, and would be scrambling to do something with Kai’s soul.
I had to act. Now.
As the elements ruptured the barroom, I joined in with the chant as if I’d never stopped. I laid my hands on either side of Kai’s temple, opened myself up to that dark shard of Bahmet that had lingered inside of me literally all my life.
I expelled it.
A life for a life, or something of greater value.
That was exactly what I’d offer up. Something so great that demons, witches and now mortals, warred over it.
It was easy. Too easy. It took but a thought, a single intention of getting rid of something that mentally I was tied to.
There wasn’t a relief that came with the dark power vacating my body, and entering another. No euphoria or the lightness of freedom. If I focused hard enough all I felt was… hollow.
Every single flame in the room extinguished as if the room exhaled. The winds died to nothing, and the ground ceased its trembling. Bathed in darkness, I couldn’t see anything. However, I could hear the heavy breathing of my coven. Four hearts beating as one.
Silence ruled the room.
“Did it work?” I gasped, sagging over the table.
“Kai?” Romy’s trembling voice cut the shadows apart. A bud of light flashed in the palm of her hand, illumining the space. “Kai… are you…”
I rocked back a step as Kai bolted upright on the table, his back heaving with his great inhales and exhales. His head turned from side to side, mouth panting as he took in everything around him. Colour rushed back to his face, filling his cheeks with the pink vitality of life.
“Oh, Hekate. Thank you,” Romy mumbled, wide-eyed with a hand over her mouth. “Thank you.”
Arwyn carefully stepped towards the reanimated body. “Go steady. You are going to need to take your—”
He never got to finish when Kai began to scream.