Rise of the Arcanist Series: Books 1 - 6 Page 6

  “This depicts two blood wizards punishing a man for speaking ill of the O-Mahou Emperor. The markings on his skin will bring him shame until they fade,” Jon read.

  “Well, at least they fade. Eventually,” Danio said, examining his hand.

  “Do we know how long that takes?” I asked.

  Jon shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

  “So, if this really is blood magic, then what is it doing in the park?” Tethys asked. “And does it have anything to do with these disappearances?”

  “That is what we must figure out,” said Jon.

  Danio cleared his throat. “What if… what if all of the missing people are being sacrificed?”

  Jon blew out a long breath. “That is a very disturbing possibility indeed.” He stood slowly. Fend soared across the room to land on his shoulder, then nibbled his ear. I swallowed hard; Fend only did that when Jon was upset. “I must go. I have much to do.” He looked around at us for a moment. “Stay home for the next few days and rest. If any of you think you are getting worse instead of better, call me immediately.”

  We all returned his low bow and he headed out. I walked him to the door while he changed shoes and followed him out onto the porch.

  “Take care, Thomas,” he said, hugging me briefly.

  “I will, Jon-tousan,” I promised.

  Everyone was still solemnly sitting in the living room. I joined Jen on the couch and she leaned against me silently. Rak brushed against my leg. The minutes ticked by and nobody spoke. Then, I heard the sound of another familiar car. It wasn’t long before the door opened and Charlie hurtled in.

  “Are you alright?” he demanded. “The office is going crazy with all these rumors and – oh my god, Danio!” He rushed across the room, grabbed Danio by the chin, and started examining his face. “What happened?!”

  “Just ran into a little blood magic,” Danio said.

  Danio was lucky fire elementals couldn’t set people on fire simply by glaring. “That is not funny,” Charlie said.

  I cleared my throat awkwardly. “He’s not joking.”

  Charlie’s jaw dropped. “What?!” he yelped.

  We quickly filled him in and soon there were five of us sitting wordlessly on the couches.

  “Hey, Charlie, aren’t you supposed to be at work?” Danio asked suddenly.

  “I left early to make sure you were okay.”

  “I texted and said I was.”

  Charlie snorted. “Yeah, except the office is all fired up because there was another disappearance in the park last night and all four agents who investigated aren’t at work today, and different agents have been called in to cover their shifts for the next three days.” He crossed his arms and glared, dark flames flaring in his eyes. “And they’re saying you all stopped by the doctor when you got back and that something weird had happened to you.”

  “I appreciate your concern,” Danio said.

  “You’re gonna be the death of me,” Charlie said, before hugging him. “Are we hanging out here or do you want to get home?”

  “I should probably get home and soak for a while,” Danio said. “Let me grab my wallet and stuff.” He turned and headed down to the basement.

  “Hey, Char,” I said as soon as he was out of sight.

  “Yeah?”

  I went over to him and whispered, “He had a rough night; the attack reminded him of the explosion.” Charlie cursed. “Make sure he gets some rest?”

  He nodded. “I’ll take care of him. Thanks, Thomas.”

  Danio returned. “Ready?”

  “Yeah.” Charlie hugged him tightly. “You alright?”

  Danio caught my eye over Charlie’s shoulder and arched a questioning eyebrow. I shrugged in answer. He pulled Charlie a little closer.

  “I’m fine, C. Don’t worry.” He nodded to me. “See you later, Tom. Bye TS, bye Jen.”

  “Bye,” they chorused.

  “Get some sleep,” Tethys advised. He yawned as they left. “I think I might go back to bed actually.”

  “Not a bad idea.”

  He headed back up the stairs and I was left with Jen. I sat down heavily on the couch and she joined me.

  “Did you get to feed last night?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “You need some blood, then. Want me to order some from Erin’s?”

  I was surprised. “You’re not going to offer to let me feed?”

  Jen fixed me with a smug smirk. “You need more than half a pint. And if you feed from me, you’ll put off getting more.”

  “I drink a full pint from you when I need it,” I protested.

  She leveled a glare at me. “No, you do not.”

  I couldn’t argue; she was right. “I’d rather not feed from you while I’m riddled with blood magic anyway,” I said instead.

  “That’s fair.” She leaned over and pressed an ear against my chest. “Your stomach-heart sounds empty. You’re due to feed tonight anyway, aren’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “So, you rest. I’ll order a couple of pints for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  She sat up and kissed me. “Of course. I want lunch anyway.”

  “Can you also get something for TS? He feels hungry.”

  “Absolutely.” Jen jumped up and grabbed her phone from the coffee table. “I’ll go order.”

  “The menu for Erin’s is in the menu drawer. Should be on top,” I called as she headed into the kitchen.

  “Thanks!” she called, voice laced with sarcasm. “I was going to Google for Erin’s Enchanted Eats and pull up the menu online, but the old-fashioned way sounds equally effective.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I laughed.

  “Can’t believe you guys redid the kitchen in this century and still have a menu drawer!” I heard her mutter.

  I sat back and chuckled. Had she really only moved in a couple short months ago? Sometimes it seemed like she had been here with me for years, if not decades.

  “How’d I get so lucky?” I murmured.

  “I think Jen would say the same thing,” Rak purred from his basket on the hearth.

  “Thanks, Rak.”

  Maybe it was all the talk of vampire creation, but my thoughts drifted briefly to what it was like to have a familiar in the house and what life would have been like had mine survived that night. She would have liked Jen, I thought. Of course, if she had lived, I wouldn’t have been reeling from a freshly broken bond the moment Tethys formed a soul-pack bond with me. At least, that was our theory for why our bond enabled me to sense him. A soul-pack bond was similar to the bond formed between a wizard and a familiar – and just as powerful – except instead of being able to sense each other, only the werewolf could sense their soul-packmate.

  If the death of my familiar at almost the exact instant Tethys bonded to me had been the cause of our unique two-way bond, we couldn’t let the word get out that it was possible. If that happened, we were afraid that someone else would try to recreate it and start killing familiars. Considering that the death of one half of a bonded pair typically resulted in the death of the other, it would be even more horrific.

  Jen started ordering and I listened in, glad to be distracted from my thoughts. A minute later she was back, with a mug of coffee for both of us. She rejoined me on the couch.

  “Forty minutes,” she said, handing me a mug.

  “Thanks, Jen. I do love you.”

  She laughed and kissed me on the cheek. “I love you too.” She waited a beat, then asked, “How many decades have you had that menu in your drawer?”

  “Um…” True, Erin’s was around when I moved in and I had been ordering from there for decades, but I was pretty sure I changed out the menu once in a while. “Not long?”

  “It had a coupon on it that expired eight years ago.” We both laughed, then sat quietly for a bit. I could tell she was studying me and assumed she was looking at the veins, until she asked, “Are you okay? I gather some of that was news for you too.�
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  “I’m alright. I was a little disturbed by some of it but…” I shrugged. “I’m a lot more concerned by the possibility there are blood casters kidnapping and sacrificing people nearby. And to go unnoticed for years…” The thought made me shiver.

  “How long has this been going on?” Jen asked. “I feel like you were dealing with missing magics back when I was still in school.”

  “I think we were,” I said grimly.

  “What does MES do for things like this?”

  “I have no idea. Normally, we’d know what to expect, you know? If it’s a bunch of vampires we get stakes and agents who know how to fight them. You even shoot for three agents per vampire, when possible. If it’s a fire elemental, you get other fire elementals and witches and wizards who are good with fire spells. I don’t know what magics or weapons even work against blood magic. Can a wizard fight a blood wizard one on one? Two on one?” I shook my head. “I don’t know if anyone has any idea how to proceed.”

  “Please be careful if they send you back out there.”

  “I will.”

  We sat quietly for a little while longer, sipping our coffee.

  “I didn’t realize they made more than just vampires. During the war, I mean,” Jen said.

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “What did Jon say? Banshees?”

  “And berserkers. Zombies too.”

  “Zombies?!” she demanded. “Like… zombie-zombies?!”

  “Not quite. These were living people, they just had their minds erased. Completely, that is, until they were just going on pure instinct. They were turned loose in enemy camps and villages and they’d just wander around looking for food; if they thought you were a threat, they defended themselves.”

  She stared at me, stunned.

  “They’re extinct now,” Rak said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “They didn’t know friend from foe, so they started roaming right back to their creators and wreaking havoc. And once people figured out they could only spread their mind wipes through contact, they just fought them from afar. They were gone before the war ended. Same with the banshees.”

  “What did they do?” Jen asked.

  “They screamed,” I chuckled. “Their screams didn’t kill people, but supposedly rendered them completely helpless. Banshees also couldn’t reproduce, so there was only a finite number, and once people figured out how to combat the screams, they were wiped out too.”

  “And um…” Jen paused.

  “Berserkers,” I told her. “They’re still around.”

  “What are they like?”

  “Nothing to mess with, that’s for sure. They’re not as strong or fast as vampires, but quite a bit stronger and faster than other kinds of magics. They’re also tough. They heal fast and can fight through injuries that would kill most people. And they have this venom in their claws that causes excruciating pain and paralysis.” Jen looked alarmed, so I quickly added, “They’re pretty rare and they can’t turn people.”

  “That’s a relief.” She frowned. “How can you know so much about all those magics created by blood magic, but not blood magic itself?”

  “I guess, like Jon said, people tried to eradicate it. All the stuff you hear about banshees and zombies is why not to use blood magic.”

  She nodded. “Makes sense.”

  “Mail’s here,” I said as I heard the truck slowing down. “Didn’t you want to mail a letter to Rachel?”

  Jen sighed. “No, I didn’t finish it. I don’t know what to write.”

  I gave her a sympathetic hug. It must have been hard to try and keep a non-magic in her life without being able to tell the truth. A little guilt gnawed at me for turning Shannon. Then again, she would have died if I hadn’t. And since she was one of Tethys’ other soul-packmates, he would have probably died with her. With our strange bond if he died… I shivered. I hated to admit it, but the way I felt as they were both dying, I didn’t think I would have made it either.

  The sound of yet another car rolling up the driveway caught my attention, this one unfamiliar.

  “Food’s here.” I started to stand, but Jen waved me back down.

  “I can get it.”

  “You ordered half a deer for TS,” I reminded her.

  She laughed. “Okay, that one might be a bit hard to manage.”

  Together, we headed for the door to get lunch.

  Chapter Five

  Jen

  For the next few days things at MES were wild; rumors were flying about what happened in the park. Thomas said he could hardly get any work done – once the frightening marks faded and he went back to work – thanks to the steady stream of people wanting to talk to him. When everything finally began to die down, there was an air of unease. Nobody was sure what to make of the threat of blood magic. It seemed like half of my co-workers weren’t even convinced it was blood magic.

  Like Thomas and the others, I did my best to try and carry out business as usual. A couple of weeks later, even the tension faded and I went into work, ready and hoping for another normal day at the office. Of course, my new normal was studying tons of policy manuals and practical tests now that my first ninety days as an intern were over.

  Instead of lunches in the break room, I switched over to using an empty classroom, so that I had a quiet place to study. Sometimes I ate alone there, other times a friend or two joined me. I said goodbye to Rak, as he headed off to eat with a couple of other familiars, before heading upstairs. The IT department was on the way to the classroom, so I stopped by and poked my head in.

  “Hey, Jen,” Ember said from her desk.

  “Did you want to grab lunch together?” I asked.

  “Yeah, sure. I could use a break anyway.” She stood and stretched, then grabbed her laptop. “I’ll be back. Seeya, Charlotte.”

  “Bye, Ember.” I heard the dhampir answer

  “Oh,” I said, hoping she didn’t feel left out. “Hi, Charlotte.”

  “Hi,” she said.

  I followed Ember out of the IT office and into the copy room where she stopped by a locker to grab a log, then followed me into the hall.

  “I didn’t hurt Charlotte’s feelings, did I?” I asked, as soon as I was confident we were too far for dhampir ears. “By not inviting her?”

  “I don’t think so,” Ember said. “She kind of keeps to herself anyway. I mean, I try to be nice and include her, but we don’t talk about much besides work. I think she’s still adjusting to being a magic.”

  “Yeah, it’s a big change… Do you think she’s lonely?”

  “She’s got a non-magic sister she talks to, a lot. I figure she’s probably trying to spend as much time with her as possible before she has to…” Ember trailed off and winced. Her eyes dimmed and smoldered. “Sorry… spoke before I thought…”

  “It’s okay.” I was quite familiar with the fire elemental tendency to blurt things out, but it was a painful reminder of my own, similar situation. I wondered if Charlotte’s sister was closer to her in age than my half-sister. At fourteen, Emily was finally old enough to exchange meaningful, readable emails and actually talk with. In some ways, that was making it harder to imagine withdrawing from her life than it was when she had been younger.

  Mariana was already in the classroom, eating lunch and reading a book. The three of us talked for a bit while we ate. Then, Ember set up her laptop and I settled in with my latest study materials. I had the afternoon blocked off to review some guidelines, so I’d be in the classroom for the rest of the day. Ember could do most of her job from her laptop, so her boss didn’t care if she vanished from time to time, which meant she could stay with me. Mariana, still pushing to actually get real work, was happy to leave Accounting for a while. She hoped that Peridot would notice she was gone and realize she needed more to do.

  We hadn’t been finished eating for long, when the last person I expected walked in.

  “Jon!” Ember yelped in surprise.

  Jon was like a father to Th
omas, so the rest of us thought of him as a father figure as well, but he was still the chief of our field office. In fact, Jon was the head of the entire northeast region of MES. Father or not, when your boss walks in and you’re slacking, you get uncomfortable. Granted I was supposed to be studying, but I still felt awkward sitting off in an unused classroom.

  If he would have preferred us at our respective workplaces, he didn’t show it. Instead, he bowed. “Good afternoon. I’m pleased to find the three of you together. This will save me some time.”

  “You are a bit hard to find though,” Fend chimed in.

  “What can we do for you?” Mariana asked, starting to stand.

  “Please, sit.” Jon crossed the room and sat at a desk of his own. For a moment, he tapped his fingers on it, looking just uneasy enough to concern me. At last, he spoke. “I must confess, I am quite frustrated.” Ember, Mariana, and I exchanged nervous glances. “A number of rumors regarding the incident in Allegany State Park have been going around. I trust the agents involved have told the three of you the full events as they truly happened?”

  We nodded.

  Jon sighed. “The situation in Allegany State Park has become too severe to allow to continue unchecked. We must stop investigating each disappearance as a separate case. I believe we need to search the entire park until we uncover those responsible.” He took a deep breath. “Yet blood magic is not something to be taken lightly. I will not needlessly endanger my agents again. The four of them are lucky to be alive.” He looked pained for a moment and I knew he was thinking of Thomas. “I do not say this due to my affection for Thomas, as well as Danio and Tethys, I say this because they are some of my best agents. Agent Fletcher is exemplary as well. They were incapacitated in moments. I cannot, and will not, send so few agents into the park again. I need more.”

  “They’re not the only four who work here,” Ember blurted.

  “No,” Jon said in agreement. “But that is still not enough. I want to launch a massive, unprecedented investigation into the park, with as many agents from the entire region as I can get. No office can spare their entire crew, nor do I expect them to. However, I feel a large team of agents from every regional field office would be enough to scour the woods with minimal casualties.” He laced his fingers together and paused, eyes slightly narrowed. “I have spent the last several days consulting with the heads of the field offices. To my great frustration, nearly half of them will not send agents.”