Chapter 24 #2
Bjorn straightens and reclaims his place.
When he's set, I nod and raise my ritual card. "Okay, let's continue from where we were, then we'll run it again from the beginning.”
The group gets ready to continue as I study the rune circle. Maybe Bjorn is right and the rune circle already knows and accepts the ritual.
In which case, this might be easier than I thought.
Emerald light snakes through the carved channels of the Irish lockstone like liquid intention. As with the lockstones in the Bahamas and Denmark, a deep, resonant hum vibrates beneath my sternum and radiates outward through my arms, my fingertips, into the stone itself.
Around the circle, the others feel it too. I can tell by the way their shoulders drop and their expressions relax. This is working.
It’s been a big day for us already.
Bahamas and Denmark are up—Ireland is next.
The runes drink in our intention, and that emerald light continues to fill in the intricately carved crevices of stone.
We're on the third verse of the incantation, and the rune circle is already three-quarters lit.
Over the long hours of our day, our voices have grown to harmonize our intentions. We're no longer nine spirit witch strangers reciting a spell, we're the next generation of The Nine, safeguarding humanity from a monstrous presence that has no business in our world.
With two successful rituals under our belts, our confidence now soars, and our near-perfect unison makes the chamber walls vibrate.
Freya stands to my left, her expression tight with pride and determination.
This is her ancestral chamber. She has spent her career researching and trying to understand what was carved into these walls.
She's dedicated her life to being ready for what was to come, and now she's performing the very ritual her ancestors wrote in desperation years ago.
To my right, Bjorn's jaw is set and his eyes are fixed on the stone floor at the base of the rune circle. He hasn't looked away since we entered the chamber.
I don't know how he knows where Henrik fell, but he knows. Maybe it's a twin thing, or maybe Garrison told him more than I realized when he delivered the death notification, but the sadness and fury in Bjorn's eyes tell me he's not so much repairing the lockstone, but avenging his brother.
I respect that.
The emerald light continues to flood through the shadowed maze of stone channels, lighting them up with our spell and intention. It's actually really beautiful to see.
Almost there.
We move into the fourth verse. This is where we lost the hold twice in the Bahamas—where the ley line energy failed to catch and sustain the spell once our voices fall away.
If the balance of intention and power isn't threaded just right, the whole circuit collapses. It's like feeding a fire that needs to burn on its own. Too much and you smother it. Too little and it goes cold.
I think we've got it now, though. There's a subtleness to it, and we've learned the feel of it.
The light continues its slow, certain arc as we complete the fourth verse, and my gaze scans my ritual sheet to follow the transition to the next part.
Bjorn's voice holds steady. Freya lifts hers slightly on the ascending note. Dae Jung and Priya maintain their counterpoint on the right flank, and Sebastian and the others form the lower brace of the harmonic.
Together it sounds less like nine people reading an incantation and more like an ode to the past. The words and phrasing are a bit archaic, and it's as enticing to listen to as it is an honor to follow in the footsteps of the original witches who cast this spell.
The last arc of the circle begins to fill with emerald green, and the ley line energy is already threading in beneath our intention. I feel the shift the moment our magic stops driving the spell, and the ritual starts becoming independent. I breathe through it and let go.
Yeah, baby.
The emerald arc inches forward. Ten inches from full coverage.
Now five.
The hair on the back of my neck lifts as the light completes the circle.
A sound comes from the chamber behind us. Not footsteps. Not people. The resonance of the energy strikes fear in my heart as the energy signature resonates.
"Incoming. Tharuzel is here!"
Bjorn takes the first hit. Something slams into him from behind and sends him crashing sideways into the chamber wall.
The emerald light holds, but it won't if Tharuzel has his way. "Asher, seal the rune wall. Don't let it fall."
"On it!"
"Everyone else. Defensive positions."
Something cold and solid hits my shoulder and knocks me sideways. I hit the ground on one knee and spin.
The torches in the chamber gutter and go out. For a moment, the glow of the rune circle is the only light to navigate by. Then, one by one, bursts of blue-white spirit fire ignite. And a split second later, the warm golden glow of Asher's shield covers the entire rune circle.
Three demons crowd the tunnel mouth—not Tharuzel's lesser shadows, not the scraping, smoke-thin things we've fought before. These are solid. Hulking and black-veined, their forms pouring into the chamber like oil through a crack, and behind them the tunnel is glowing red.
Bjorn is already back on his feet, blood at his temple, spirit fire crackling up his forearms.
"I really feckin' hate yer demon." Freya's voice is stripped bare, her accent even thicker than usual.
"I hate him more, I guarantee it." I throw a ball of spirit fire at the three coming through the door. It catches one in the shoulder but does nothing more than spin it to the side and piss it off.
The red glow in the hall brightens.
And then the tunnel wall simply ceases to exist.
Stone and dirt and centuries of layered rock explode inward in a concussive wave that knocks Priya and Dae-Jung off their feet and sends a fine crack racing up the chamber ceiling.
Dust rains down, and through the opening where the tunnel wall used to be, Tharuzel steps through. The air bends around him, light recoiling as the lines of the shifting runes pulse red through the leathery skin of his arms, chest, and throat.
The vertical mouth splits open from his bone-mask to the center of his sternum, and a chorus of stolen voices scream at once. "You have become a hindrance, little witch."
More demons spill into the room and a section of the chamber ceiling gives way as he stands to his full ten-foot height. "Your usefulness has reached its end. Prepare to die."