Bones and Blood Spells (Bones and Shadow #3)

Chapter 1

Disloyal

Yorick Orrin scrubbed his face with a hand, staring at the parchment clutched between his thick fingers.

His eyes scanned the script, but his mind struggled to see past the panic the words evoked.

He’d read it three times now, and still, he could not seem to move past the message itself and onto what he should do.

They’d taken Malefic.

Their True King, the Dark King, as he was called reverently among the believers. They’d taken him. It was beyond comprehension.

The way it happened should perhaps be less surprising, but it shocked nonetheless. That prick of an heir, all smirks and superior stares, had turned traitor on his own father.

And he’d done it with that slut hybrid, the La Fey girl.

Thanks to the two of them, Malefic was locked beneath The Pyramid.

Maximum security. Collared against using his own magic.

The Gaol of Giza, which was colloquially known as “The Pyramid” everywhere apart from in official documentation, had never been breached.

Only criminals against Magique itself got sent there, those seen as a threat to the race as a whole.

The worst war criminals of the Caste Wars died inside its bowels, never to see daylight again.

The thought of Malefic being locked under those stone blocks was… sobering.

Glancing out the window of his office, Orrin looked down on the London square directly below.

Protesters filled the park, with more trickling into the statue-filled gardens all the time.

That was no small feat, as the park itself took up most of four streets between the two largest buildings making up the Central Magical Authority, the collection of offices, courtrooms, legislative halls, audience chambers, records, and law enforcement that governed all of Magical Britain and its territories.

He’d never seen anything like it.

If it hadn’t been for the predicament of their Dark King, Orrin might’ve been jubilant at the sight.

Their recruitment efforts were surely making great inroads for this many to be out in the streets.

Seeing them there, with morphing magical signs, smoke messages, and fireworks, screaming for the release of Malefic Bones, champion of the Magical race, should have been gratifying.

It should mark a moment of triumph, particularly with Malefic being held for what amounted to crimes against the Magical race.

Truly, the list of charges sounded like something from the last Magical war, which also involved members of their sect: Treason.

Incitement to treason. Recruitment with malicious and violent intent.

Disloyalty to Magical Britain. Disloyalty to the Ethnarch.

Conspiracy against the Royal Family. Conspiracy against Magique.

Conspiracy to treason against the Ancient Race. Sedition against World Order.

Conspiracy against the Royal Family?

Under different circumstances, that one would have been deliciously ironic. Malefic cared more about his position within the royal bloodlines than any sorcerer Orrin had ever known.

“Do you have questions about the charges?” the mage behind him asked.

Orrin looked up, tensing under his cloak.

He’d forgotten the other male was there.

In some less-conscious area of his mind, Orrin thought Calvarias had already left. Or perhaps he’d simply hoped he had. Sergius Calvarias and his wife, Sirena, were what Malefic described once to Orrin as “necessary weapons” to the cause.

Which was a delicate way of describing two Magicals who were bloodthirsty past the point of even Orrin’s own comfort level with violence, which was considerably higher than the vast majority of witches and mages who made up Magical Britain.

The taller mage stared at Orrin with his deep-set, violet eyes.

Vertical pupils slashed the center of each iris, making them even more unnerving.

His gold-headed jackal, familial primal for the Calvarias bloodline, sat stoically by its master’s feet, its black eyes glass-like, and as impossible to read as Calvarias’s own.

Orrin found both Sergius Calvarias and his wife, Sirena, unsettling to share a room with.

It was said that Sirena’s family had many Oracles in their bloodline, but something felt off in Sergius’s blood, as well.

The mage had an odd way of moving that made Orrin uneasy, mostly because it rendered the male Calvarias close to invisible.

Sergius was easy to forget, for he barely seemed to exist in a room at all.

Forgetting him was deeply unwise.

Sergius Calvarias was as dangerous as the Dark King himself. His wife, Sirena, an extremely powerful witch, might even be more lethal.

For the same reason, Orrin hid his distaste and turned politely to face him, knowing Calvarias wouldn’t have stayed if he didn’t have something he wished to discuss. Orrin attempted to hand back the parchment he’d been given, but the other’s eyes flickered off it with indifference.

He’d clearly not stayed for that.

Orrin folded up the letter instead and stuffed it into the inner pocket of his coat.

He didn’t really like how close Calvarias stood to him, but he refused to step back.

Like with any dangerous animal, he’d learned that showing fear in front of this mage was not wise.

He stared into Sergius’s freakish eyes, and wondered if this would be a discussion about who would now be in charge of Dark Cathedral, with their King indisposed.

“No,” Orrin said belatedly. “I have no questions, Sergius.”

He kept his expression and voice calm.

“Did you need something of me imminently, brother?” he asked politely.

“Obviously, we all need to talk, thus the meeting tonight. But perhaps it is best that you and I wait until then? I imagine the entire company will have a significant number of questions. They shall also want to weigh in, particular in regards to––”

“We have located the girl you requested,” Calvarias broke in. “The Whitehorse girl.”

Orrin flinched, unable to entirely suppress his surprise. “Oh. Have you?” His own familiar primal, a black ox, began pawing the floor excitedly and snorting.

“Yes.” The tall mage adjusted the lapels of his coat. His jackal stared at Orrin’s ox with flat eyes. “The girl awaits our pleasure at Greythorne’s estate. We would like to conduct the ritual this week. But only if you are in agreement?”

A ripple of heated excitement flickered through Orrin’s magic.

“I certainly have no disagreement.” His ox continued to paw and snort, betraying his true reaction.

“But do you think it wise, under the circumstances? Surely they will be looking for any instances of our people congregating in a single place? The Praecuri have made it known they are hunting for all of Malefic’s accomplices and co-conspirators. ”

Calvarias’s cat-like face didn’t move.

“We will not be seen,” Sergius stated, matter-of-fact.

“And we cannot wait. We must conduct the procedure as often as possible, every night, as many per night as we can. It is the only way we will rescue our King.” He paused, arching one black eyebrow.

“The ritual space is secure. If our people follow protocol, there is no risk.”

Orrin didn’t maintain quite the same level of optimism on that point, but his excitement about the prospect of reuniting with his Lucia overrode most other considerations.

Calvarias was right. The work could not stop.

Still, he was not a fool. Why was Sergius bringing him this gift now? Surely it wasn’t a coincidence? Orrin warily studied the other mage’s odd eyes, his short-cropped black hair, the goatee that had been precisely trimmed into an upside-down pyramid.

Was it meant to be a peace offering?

Or was it meant to make Orrin amenable to Calvarias claiming leadership over their sect? With the tall mage, it was impossible to know for certain.

Still, Orrin doubted somehow that being the face of Dark Cathedral was Sergius’s goal. Some Magicals preferred to be puppeteers in the background, and Orrin had long suspected Calvarias, the male Calvarias at least, to be one of these.

Either way, Orrin had no intention of genuflecting to this gaunt, skull-faced worm, nor anyone who wasn’t the Dark King.

Orrin knelt for Malefic. No one else. He’d been out in the field for years now, doing the Bones patriarch’s bidding, even taking shit from Malefic’s prick of a son when the occasion demanded.

He’d earned a nickname for that work within the Dark Cathedral rank and file, one that only got whispered behind hands.

They called him: “The Executioner” when they didn’t think he was listening.

Orrin didn’t mind it. He rather liked the moniker.

But he was Malefic Bones’s executioner, no one else’s.

He cracked skulls for the Dark King. No one else.

“I agree,” he began, brusque. “We will go forward with it. Set it up.”

“It is already in motion,” Calvarias said, as if Orrin’s agreement was immaterial.

“We will be picking up more vessels, as well.” His narrow mouth twitched, his violet eyes still.

“As I said, we cannot wait, brother. We must do it now, before the True King is damaged by the Gaol, or murdered by those in power. He must be freed.”

Orrin blinked.

Whatever he’d expected Calvarias to say, it wasn’t that.

“We aren’t ready for that,” Orrin warned.

“The whelp’s turned on him. He’s the only one who might’ve entered the Pyramid and brought a prisoner out alive.

Not to mention, we need human subjects, as well as vessels, and that was the whelp’s domain, as well.

Unless you know his mystical means of walking through deadly chimaeras and inter-dimensional portals, I cannot see how we’d accomplish those things without him.

Malefic held onto that information like it was his family’s only key to their primary vault.

Another of his secrets that seems destined to disappear with him––”

“We don’t need the heir. Not anymore,” Calvarias stated flatly.