Revenant: Black Rose Files Book 2 (The Black Rose Files) Read online

  What other hope did she have? What was open to her that would be able to help her get free from whatever the nightmare plaguing her was?

  She was not sure if the thing was a demon, a ghost or something else entirely, but what she had seen was real. If those things were true, then couldn't magic be? There were powerful forces messing with her - she knew that - but where was the line? Where was the distinction between sanity and magic?

  Maybe there wasn't one.

  Sam watched as Odessa put the final strand of the circle down. She closed the bag - largely emptied of its contents - and stood. She walked toward Sam and dropped it near her feet.

  "We're going to build the ritual now," She said, a deadly serious expression on her face. Beads of sweat lined her forehead, in spite of the chill air.

  "What do we need to do?"

  "The things you brought me are the components of the spell. Each one signifies something different." She took the bag Sam held and pried the knot open.

  She pulled the rope out and passed it over to Sam. "Hold that for a minute."

  Sam let it dangle from her hand as Odessa crossed the line she drew and poured the dirt into the center of the circle. It made a small pile compared to the rest of the cleared space.

  "This represents the demon," Odessa said, her voice only barely coming across to Sam. She spent the next minute chanting softly to herself, words Sam could neither catch nor perceive.

  Odessa knelt next to it, her knees pushing away some of the earth beneath them. She put her hands around the pile she made, but was careful not to touch any of it. More words came from her lips but, Sam still could hear none of them distinctly.

  Finally, Odessa stood erect once more and walked out of the circle of bone dust. She nodded at Sam as she got close.

  "Each component has to be prepared, and that was only the first step. We have to make sure to protect ourselves in all of this, or things will go... badly."

  "How?" A twinge of nervousness fluttered through Samantha as her eyes flicked to the pile.

  "At the least, it could backfire and give the creature more power." Odessa shook her head. "I won't let that happen. The thing is tough, but I'm tougher."

  "What do you need me to do?"

  "Just be ready for a long day," Odessa replied, a smirk coming to her lips. "And believe this is going to work."

  "And if I don't? I'm having a hard time with all of this."

  "If you don't, we could find making it more powerful is the least of our problems." Odessa reached her hand out to touch Sam's shoulder. "I know it's tough. We're in a modern world with modern thoughts and science that says magic can't exist." She let it fall again and stared into Sam's eyes. "But there's a lot science doesn't understand, and even more it gets wrong."

  Sam nodded, knowing that was true. "I've seen people argue over simple things."

  "Magic is another type of science. It's not always easy to understand, but it's just as real as this ground we're standing on, or my house." She raised her arm and snapped the fingers of her right hand. A flash darted across the tips of her index finger and a small flame appeared at the end. "Once you get the trick, it's like driving your car or using a refrigerator."

  Sam could not take her eyes off of the fire. It flickered there, clinging to her digit. Odessa showed no sign it was burning her and, through the flame, she could see no damage being done to the skin.

  "How the hell?" Sam started, but Odessa flicked her fingers again and it disappeared.

  "It's just a tool, Samantha." Sam pulled her gaze back to the woman's eyes. "It's potent, but a tool, nonetheless. Some people take years to be able to use it right, and some are born to it. But like there are folks that can sit at a piano and be a prodigy, or be great at math without trying, that does not mean no one else can do it. It simply takes practice."

  "Can you do that again?" Sam asked. Her mind still could not latch on to how Odessa was able to do it. The woman had done nothing more than snap her fingers and the flame appeared.

  She did it once more, and smiled at Sam as it shifted. "I learned how to do it when I was young," she said. "Doesn't make me special. Just means I can use a tool."

  She waved her hands and the flame scattered away once more. Sam closed her mouth after realizing it was still hanging agape at what she had seen.

  "Can you teach that to me?" She asked, finally.

  Odessa laughed, the sound of it light and happy. "Sure, if you want to learn it. From what I've seen in you so far, I think you'll pick it all up quick."

  She turned away, the smile remaining on her face, but the tone of her voice becoming more serious. "First, though, we have things to do."

  She took the rope and crossed into the circle. While she chanted anew, Sam waited where she stood, still in shock at what Odessa had done.

  It was no minor parlor trick, and she made it seem as easy as taking a breath. Sam had seen magicians on television do similar things, but they also had the cameras there to help with the illusion. Sure, there was the possibility it was mere slight of hand, she was positive there was nothing Odessa had on her to make that kind of thing happen. If there was, she certainly hid it well.

  It was so simple, such a small gesture, but Sam was starting to consider there could be plenty more to things than what she originally thought. If this lady, this frail old woman living on a farm in the middle of the sticks, could make fire appear in her hands as effortlessly as a smile, she really could do something to help her get away from the being she found herself stuck with.

  Maybe there was a chance, after all, that magic could exist. She could possibly step through the open door of a change in belief and survive the nightmare her life had become.

  Odessa finished her chanting by placing the rope across the pile of dirt, still careful to touch none of it. Then she walked with the rest of it out of the circle and laid it on the ground near Sam's feet.

  "This describes the line between yourself and the demon," she said. "Once the ritual starts, you'll need to hold on to it and the necklace. That's going to represent you, and will let me sever the power tying you to it."

  She reached out her hand and took the pendant from Sam. She then bent down and laid it across the rope end near Sam's feet.

  Sam stepped back so she could have room to work. A new chant began, and with her this close, Sam was able to pick out more of it than she could when Odessa was inside the circle.

  The words were strange, a language she did not know. It seemed like Latin, but Sam could not be sure. The strangeness of it was pushed further by the realization she could not remember any of them as soon as they were said. They disappeared from her memory when entered her ears, letting her grasp the phrasing, but tune into none of it.

  She furrowed her brows and tried harder to hear them all, but that did no good. Something was blocking her from having any understanding of it at all.

  When she finished, Odessa stood back up again. "We're all set. The cleansing has been done, and the components are tied to the ritual."

  "Why couldn't I catch any of the words?" Sam could almost touch the memory of the sounds Odessa said, feeling them there, somehow, but there was a disconnect between.

  "That's how it works," Odessa replied. "If you want to know about it, I will teach you later. Right now, I need to concentrate on what we're doing here."

  Sam nodded, and, with that, Odessa walked away, coming to a stop a ten yards distant. She turned herself to the center of the circle, facing the pile of dirt she made.

  "Okay," she said, raising her voice enough for Sam to hear her across the distance, "kneel down and take both the pendant and the rope in your hand, and don't let go until I say we're done." She glanced over to make sure Sam was complying. "Got it?"

  Sam nodded.

  She bowed down, letting herself come to rest on the balls of her feet. She picked up the pendant first, cupping it into the palm of her right hand. The weight of it was nothing compared to that of the rope, which she placed there
as well, making sure both the necklace and strand were touching. She held some of the slack in her left fist, too, hoping it would help compensate for some of the sweat beading across her fingers.

  "Ready," she said aloud, staring at the woman who would be doing her best to rescue her.

  Odessa nodded in return and placed her gaze firmly at the center of the circle.

  With that, she raised her hands and began to chant once more.

  Chapter 15

  The words pouring forth from Odessa were, once again, unintelligible to Samantha, but she tried to listen, regardless.

  Odessa told her the ritual might take some time, so Sam did her best to keep her body relaxed, in spite of the position she squatted in. She gripped tight to the rope and locket, keeping her palm closed. Her hand was already starting to ache, and she gritted her teeth together. It was, perhaps, still weakened from the other night with the gun held so long.

  She had no substantive idea of what to expect, and was not sure if any of this would do good, anyhow. But she wanted it to work. She wished desperately for something to help release her from the machinations fate had strung her to. Something had to give.

  The already chill air grew even more so as what was once a soft breeze picked up speed. Sam's hair lashed around her face. She had to use her free hand, the one ensuring her balance in the squat she kept, to swipe it away every few seconds. She regretted not tying it back but she did not think about it before all of this started.

  She would have to cope, and hope it would not interfere.

  Odessa's chanting became a drone in her ears, a continuous litany of words she did not understand and could not grasp hold of in her mind to concentrate on. They washed away, water freed from a dam, as the voice of the woman took on a pulse of its own. She still held her arms outstretched, both pointing to the center of the circle where the pile of dirt lay.

  Minutes passed without anything but the wind blowing. The birds on the wires, on the house and the silo, resting on the roof of the barn, all blithely observed the two humans below them. They cared little about what was going on.

  More time followed with Odessa still stringing words together, a cacophony of gibberish to Sam's ears, and, as her own discomfort grew, Sam doubted any of this was worthwhile. Maybe she was just a party trick, after all.

  Still, she closed her eyes for a moment and let herself relax. Even if all of this was for naught, it was something. She really did want to trust it, to accept what they were doing would work. What other choice did she have?

  When she opened them again, she glanced to where Odessa stood, some feet away, and watched her lips move non-stop. The wind was increasing, though, when she looked, the clouds above seemed to be standing still.

  How could that be?

  A strange tingle began on the edges of Sam's skin. The wind cut through her, forcing its way past the light jacket she wore, so her body beneath became sensitive to it. Soft sparks of electricity danced around the hairs on her arms and legs, only to fade and reappear somewhere else.

  Sam adjusted her position, using her free hand to balance her legs, trying to reduce some of the prickling and, as she did, her eyes flicked to the center of the circle, forcing her to freeze.

  A weird vapor began to swirl around the pile there, growing more intense by the second. The dirt, itself, seemed to be moving, stirred about like it was a part of a small quake. Bits of it slid away from the top, spreading it outward until it was much flatter to the ground than it had been.

  Even in the bright sunlight, there was a shadow beginning to form above the earth, coalescing together as the haze became more dense. She closed her eyes against it, not sure if what she was seeing was real. She shook her head as she squeezed them until an intensity of color and shapes replaced the darkness the lids created.

  When she opened them again, she stared into the center and realized sit was not imagination, nor a product of bleary sleeplessness.

  There was something forming there, and the more time passed, the more sure she became of it.

  It was growing.

  The black haze, as smoke from a fire, came from nowhere, each bit of it gathering together as a cloud, hovering a foot or two from the ground beneath, and it all was centered on the middle point of the circle. As the shadow deepened, the wind got stronger, but it pushed none of it away from where it was seized.

  A hissing joined the wind, radiating from the smoke, and, though it was barely there at first, it increased in volume each second. The form shifted, condensing even tighter until Sam could not see through it to the other side.

  Odessa chanted louder, her voice overcoming the sounds of the wind and the seething, and Sam tightened her grip on the rope and necklace. Small bits of the petals the rose was made of pushed into her flesh. The stabbing was not distracting enough to tear away from the smoke which was beginning to shift into something bipedal.

  Sam squinted again as debris struck her eyes, carried on by the gale. Water streamed out as they tried to clean themselves and her stomach turned as dread gripped her, digging its fangs into her hard.

  Her fear increased as the wheezing began turn into a low, moaning laugh. Horrific, familiar laughter.

  The shadow rapidly became more distinct, the image becoming more clear, until she saw the same she had seen too many times before.

  With the light of day, her vision caught things she was not able to before, and every inch of it brought new panic, her veins icy, even as the pounding of her heart erupted from her chest.

  The face of the thing could have once been human, but the skin had rotted, sloughed off with time and decay, until it hung from it in patches. Where it had fallen away, around its cheeks and jowls, near its dark pits that had once been eyes, the bones and teeth gleamed in the sun. That lip-less mouth was a smile gone terribly wrong.

  It had what could have been a jacket, and the hat on its head leaked clods of hair from under the brim. White and stringy, it did not move with the wind, nor did any of the clothing it seemed to wear.

  It - he? - clacked teeth together once, twice, staring directly at Sam, whose own mouth was wide with shock and fear. It exuded another laugh, the sound pouring into her from all sides.

  As her eyes streamed, the figure shifted, fading away somewhat as it raised its' own arms toward her, much like Odessa had her own towards it.

  The birds which had been watching all of the activity cried out as one, all of them taking wing and rushing from where the three figures were. It distracted Sam for only a second, before she turned her gaze back to the thing in the hat and the hissing sound which had been exuding from it faded away. Its' arms were upraised and pointing to her, directly at her chest, and the laugh burst once more.

  A moment later, through her panic and despair at the sight, another familiar drone began to take shape in her hearing and she pleaded with Odessa in her mind to hurry. No words came through the lock in her throat.

  Worms erupted from the earth beneath her fingers, crawling over her hand. She jerked it from the cold sliminess, but she had to put it back down again as the first of the bugs flew into her, each one crashing into her body like a bullet. She cried out, her voice lost within the enormous sound of the thousands of insects and other things that pounded into her. Her cry was cut short as dozens used the chance to stream into her opened mouth and she gagged at their touch. She spat them away, but a few still crawled around her teeth.

  Without thinking, she swatted the ones in her hair, the many throwing themselves at her exposed skin on her face and hands, her neck already completely inundated by them.

  Her hand flailed as she tried to push them off of herself, but each time she did, more took their place, and her heart skittered, holding her breath to keep them from getting into her lungs.

  Instinctively, her other came up, dropping her grip on the rope and necklace. She desperately thrashed to clean herself of the swarm that had become her body, the sound of them as they crawled into her ears overwhelming everyt
hing else.

  One of her feet slid from beneath her and she fell backwards, coming to land on her rear as the other foot skidded away. Sam flung her arms around, flailing ineffectively at the things attacking her.

  "No!" she barely heard Odessa shout, and she looked her way.

  She, too, was being attacked by the bugs, but she was doing her best to keep her footing and still chant the words she desperately needed to say. Sam's view of her lasted only a few seconds, before a second swarm of the vermin blocked everything from her.

  It did not last long, though; they moved back and forth between the two women, biting and scratching anything they could.

  The cloying scent of death and rot was all over Sam as she fought even harder, legs and feelers gripping to her tight as they piled atop her. The ground was covered in them, a great mass of life and disgust. Locusts, flies, bees and other things she could not recognize in her panic, all working together to destroy her. All carrying nightmares and darkness in their wings.