Chapter 22
“No…no, no, no. No one knows. I have no reason to go there. None…” Georgie muttered out loud as he paced behind Bab’s Diner, unaware that Noble was standing in the shadows of a nearby alleyway.
Noble wasn’t sure what the older man was talking himself out of, but it was even clearer now that the diner owner was guilty of something.
As this was the tenth time Georgie had talked himself out of going wherever it was, he figured he should probably just head back to the library, as it was unlikely the man would be going anywhere.
“Ollie, what are you getting into now?” Detective Gordon Jamison sighed.
“Just doing some local research on an old cold case. And having the file would be helpful. Of course, you know me, a paper copy would be preferred,” Ollie said with a giggle.
“You know there is an official form you need to fill out, right?”
“I do know, and I've already emailed it to the records department, but I figured if I called, maybe it would get processed sooner. I also wanted to make sure it actually went through.”
The man snorted. “If you don’t hear anything by Tuesday, come in with the actual form.”
Three days…well, it was better than nothing. “Will do.”
“If there is nothing else, I’m hanging up now. Stay out of trouble, kid.”
“Don’t I always?”
“No,” the man deadpanned before the line went dead.
Pocketing his phone with a smile, he eyed the table and his supplies, and tried to feel confident.
Because now that was done, it was time to move on to other important matters.
And he could do this. Like, he had this!
He had gotten another hand mirror, he had the sand, and he now had a fire blanket right next to him, in case things blew up again. Not that they would…
On a slightly more fun note, it appeared as if the room had magically cleaned itself. While he had attempted to clean up a bit before he left, he couldn’t find even a speck of soot remaining from the first fire. Though it was possible Red had cleaned the room…
He looked to his cat. “Did you clean?”
Red shook his head. “No. Likely the room itself.”
“Oh, good.”
And it was a good thing, as he really didn’t want to deal with more fire damage. Hopefully, they’d get the damaged room back by the end of next week, along with at least some of their books.
He eyed the book and the instructions before looking at his supplies.
What if…he didn’t have the right kind of mirror, or the right kind of sand?
Like, his was a cheap, plastic hand mirror.
What if it had to be wooden, or what if white sand was the wrong kind of sand?
! What if he needed volcanic sand?! Wouldn’t the book be specific if he needed a special kind of sand and mirror?
But what if it wasn’t specific because people at an advanced level should just know? !
Sighing, he glanced briefly at Red again—who was likely waiting for him to start a fire—before eyeing the picture one more time. The sand in the illustrations did look dark, but it was also done in black ink and on aged paper, so…
Whatever, he’d try with the cheap stuff one more time and...if it didn’t work, he’d just order, or go out and buy, higher quality items.
Taking a deep breath, Ollie grabbed a handful of sand and slowly started to sprinkle it over the mirror, as he chanted, “Grant me thy will, thy Endless Death, to read betwixt the lies of the entombed. Embed thy reflection with thy mark.”
Ollie repeated himself, as he had the first time, and on the second repeat, he felt the sand begin to heat up in his hands.
Even though he knew it must be burning, he remained unharmed.
Hope began to form as he repeated it for the third time and no explosion, but that hope quite literally blew away as he finished the fourth.
Ollie leapt back when the last word left his mouth and the mirror exploded into shards of glass, while fire shot up five feet into the air.
His heart racing, he winced as glass nicked him, but instead of screaming and panicking, like he really wanted to, he rushed to grab the blanket, even though Red seemed to be trying to suck in the fire again.
Ollie tossed the blanket over the thankfully now-smaller fire, as his familiar successfully sucked part of it in.
Smoke rose up around the edges of the blanket as it smothered what remained, mixing with what Red was releasing from his mouth.
Trying to wave the smoke away, Ollie sagged in relief when he slowly lifted the blanket and found the fire was fully out.
“No more attempts today,” Red rasped, after coughing out a few more plumes of smoke.
“Maybe…I need better supplies?” he suggested sheepishly.
His familiar rolled his eyes, before saying firmly, “No more attempts for today,” before padding testily from the room.
Ollie sighed and said to himself, “No more attempts…”
Only because he really didn’t want to test how well the protective magic worked in the room, especially without Red.
Eyeing the mess on the table, he quickly looked away and hurried to the bathroom across the hall from the private library, cleaning soot off his face and out of his hair the best he could.
When he went to take care of the cuts, he frowned when he wiped the blood away and found them all healed. “Huh…that’s…convenient.”
Part of Ollie wondered if they should re-test his magic again, because he was pretty sure he shouldn’t be able to do that. But, oh well…
Returning to the secret library, he stopped in his tracks when he spotted the table. His mess was gone and the fire blanket was now nicely folded up on one of the chairs. “Even more convenient, and something I am not going to question at all, nope!”
However, he may want to question talking to himself…
Giving his head a shake, Ollie wandered around the room, stopping when he came across the bookcase marked ‘Witch Hunters’. He hesitated, as it seemed, like with everything else, he wasn’t exactly sure where to start. But…maybe he didn’t need to know.
And well, if it had worked once, maybe it would work again? Clearing his throat, he spoke out loud. “Not sure where to start with this many books. Many without even titles on the spine…”
Ollie giggled happily when one small, very thin, dark blood-red spine started to glow. “Thank you,” he chimed as he pulled the book from the shelf, and hurriedly settled at the table.
Ollie had to say, he was starting to love the glowing books—even if the first glowing book he’d come across was still a pain in the butt.
Though, thinking about the fact that it was hard to know exactly what he’d find in the books on the shelves, it would be good to start writing down each book he read, so he could at least attempt to organize the books within their individually categorized bookcases, while beginning a full write up of what was actually in there.
Opening the book, he thankfully found that it wasn’t handwritten, which served him well as it was in German—old German. There wasn’t a table of context, but it was only around fifty pages, if that.
The title was one word, ‘Jagāri’, which simply meant ‘Hunter’.
Flipping to the first bit of text, he read out loud as it helped his brain translate. “‘Though we call them witch hunters…the true name they have taken for themselves is…The Parables of the Righteous Hunt…’”
He scoffed. Well, they definitely sounded full of themselves…which usually fit most overly ‘righteous’ organizations.
Tsking, he continued. “‘The group lures in new members through various ways. Some with the promise of power, others with acts of…violence or revenge, and some with righteous…religious retribution.
“‘Regardless of the reason, if the individual successfully lives through the.
..initiation years, what follows is what makes true hunters a danger to witch kind, and the very reason I am…
risking exposure by recording this. While it is a risk, it is one I am willing to take in the hopes that this be a…
warning to any witch who is lucky enough for the book to fall within their hands.
“‘Now, the…initiation years I cannot speak about with…absolutes, when it comes to how long they take, but I can say for certain what happens afterward.’” Ollie’s hand froze as he turned the page and found a word that translated to simply mean ‘The Ritual’, but it was what was underneath that had him hesitating—a somewhat looming black and white block print of a person with a wicked-looking blade, standing menacingly before an individual who was overly bound to the ground.
Staked chains were wrapped around the bound person’s wrists, neck, elbows, chest, hips, thighs, knees, and ankles.
Forcing himself to look away, he translated the German underneath.
“‘While it is often commonly called ‘The Ritual’, in truth, it has another name—The…Ascension. It is this ritual, this Ascension, by which hunters gain the upper hand. Because it is in this moment that they completely strip away their own…humanity by draining the vitality of a witch… Hypocritically using the very arcane they claim to despise to do so. Through this process, the hunter gains immortality…increased physical strength, increased senses, faster healing…along with gaining minor protection against magic as a whole.’”
Ollie’s stomach twisted as he turned page after page and found one horrifying print after another, with almost a step-by-step guide to the process in between.
It was only when he reached the last page that he found himself swallowing hard, just staring at the block print that took up most of the space.