Vellum and Green Vitriol
Copyright © 2007, S. Y. Affolee
The Third Conjuration
Seal XXIX
"Thomasina!"
I looked up from my crouch over the hotel clerk. The bartender, Finn, had been carrying an armload of towels towards the stairs leading down to the hot baths on the lower level when he spotted the fallen form of his fellow employee.
"What happened? We should call the doctor!"
I shook my head as he headed toward the hotel desk for the telephone. "I don't think we need a doctor just yet, Finn. She probably just fainted. I don't suppose you have some smelling salts? Cold water might work too."
"I'll go see what we have."
As Finn moved away, I leaned back over Thomasina to gauge her color. She seemed fine, only asleep. Passing a hand over her nose, I felt a puff of air, reassuring me that she was still breathing. Then, I put my palm on her forehead and reached out with my other senses.
Something thick and ugly had latched onto Thomasina's mind, forcing her to unconsciousness. The spell pulsed angry and hot, tenaciously holding onto its anchor until, perhaps, its summoner released it.
I pushed part of my power into my fingertips. Black sigils appeared on my skin, flowing towards the tips of my fingers. They formed a long delicate chain with a hook at its end, like a fisherman's lure. I twitched my fingers in a precise movement, using my hand as a fishing rod, and the hook disappeared through Thomasina's head.
Almost immediately, something caught. I drew it out quickly before it had a chance to struggle. The sleeping spell dangled on the hook--a writhing silver worm, the body beating as if tiny hearts lay inside, pulsing in synchrony.
I brought up my other hand, a shielding spell etched on my palm like wet ink, and enclosed the worm in a fist. When I opened my fingers, all of the sigils on my skin disappeared. The only thing in my hand now was a small black marble.
At the sound of Finn's return, I put the marble into a pocket.
"Thomasina, can you hear me?"
The clerk's eyelids fluttered at the sound of my voice. "Miss Talbot?" She coughed. "What happened?" Slowly, she propped herself up on her elbows and looked around. "Why am I on the floor?"
"You fainted," said Finn. He kneeled down to hand her a cup of water. "Thank God you're all right. I was about to call the doctor."
"Do you remember anything that happened?" I asked. I wasn't sure if the head priestess of the Order of the Silver Moon had erased her memory as well. If so, the spell would be more dangerous than it first appeared.
"No." She took a drink of water, but her expression was still confused. "No. All I remember is that I was sitting at the hearth reading and drinking hot chocolate and now I'm on the floor."
"You don't remember getting up from your chair?" I prompted.
She shook her head. "I...wait. I did get up. I heard someone come in at the front door. The Order of the Silver Moon had just come back from dinner and I was offering them an evening drink when..." Her eyes went wide and she clutched my arm. "I saw Mr. Lattimore. He seemed incapacitated. Then Mistress Arial touched me."
I patted her hand. "Take a deep breath, Thomasina."
She did as I told her, but she was shaking her head as if she was trying to clear out cobwebs. "I can't remember anything else."
"What's this about the Order of the Silver Moon and Mistress Arial?" demanded Finn. "Why did they take Mr. Lattimore?"
I put my finger to my mouth to indicate that they should speak in lowered voices. "I don't know what they want with Mr. Lattimore, but most certainly it won't be anything good since he's unconscious."
"You saw him too?" Thomasina whispered.
"I saw your entire encounter with the Order," I replied. "But I had to pretend that I was asleep so their attention was not drawn to me. They took Mr. Lattimore into the dining hall."
"The dining hall?" Finn frowned. "That's locked."
I debated about telling the two about magic. The real kind, not the fancy kind with a "k" at the end. I decided on white lies instead. Most humans in today's rational age would find the lies more believable.
"The Order picked the lock," I said. "And I think the high priestess may have done some martial arts trick to render Thomasina unconscious."
"She used ninja tricks on me?" Thomasina whispered furiously. Color seeped into her cheeks. "She's going to pay for assaulting me!" The hotel clerk made to get up and march towards the dining hall doors.
I put a restraining hand on her elbow. "Wait, we have to think about this. We can't go barging in. It's the whole Order of the Silver Moon against three of us. And it's obvious that they're very dangerous."
"How much havoc can a bunch of women cause anyway?" said Finn. "We can call the police..."
"No, I don't think we should call them right away. Letting the authorities handle the entire situation won't work." Thinking about the Order blasting magic at wholly unprepared policemen made my head hurt. Or maybe that was the alcohol I had for dinner. "We have to find out what they're doing in the dining hall first. Is there any other way into the dining hall besides those front doors?"
"There are some service doors connected to the kitchen," Thomasina said. "They're partially hidden by the screens along the walls."
"There is another door by the bar," supplied Finn. "But you would have to go through the kitchen and then the cellar to get to it."
"We'll check the service doors first," I said as I helped the hotel clerk back on her feet. "We should see what they are doing before we call the police or do anything else rash."
The three of us crept down the first floor hallway to the last room which was the kitchen. Finn shouldered ahead and was the first to peer out of the service door.
"Miss Talbot, I think you should see this."
The service door was opened a few inches and at first, I couldn't see anything except a pair of art deco screens. But then I noticed that the screens weren't placed directly together, that there was a gap between the two which I could look through.
The priestesses were shoving all of the tables aside to make room at the center of the dining hall. Mistress Arial was directing all the activity with her pointing fingers. Two priestesses, who had been propping Rhys up, had dragged him to the center of the room and left him in an ignominious heap. Yet another priestess was pouring a white powder onto the perimeter--like a protective circle.
"This is bad," I whispered. I stepped back to let Thomasina have a peek. "We have to do something soon."
"Police?" Finn said hopefully.
"Not alone."
"Miss Talbot, what are they doing? Why are they pouring stuff on the floor? That's going to be a pain to clean!" Thomasina exclaimed.
"They are going to sacrifice Mr. Lattimore," I said grimly. Rhys was a book, so in a sense, he wouldn't exactly die unless they roasted him, but it would most certainly put an end to his ability to walk about as a man.
Thomasina gasped at my conclusion.
"That's murder!" said Finn angrily. "We have to stop it."
I managed to pull him back from bursting through the service doors. "Storming into there won't work. We need a plan."
"What sort of plan?"
I peeked out again. I noticed that just across from the service door was the bar. One of the priestesses had finished putting down the circle of protection and Arial Goldenhair had just stepped inside. Something sharp flashed in her hand. Directly above, the iron and glass chandelier glittered. A thick rope threaded through a closed hook on the ceiling and held the chandelier suspended. The rope itself terminated behind the art deco screens and was tied to another hook close to the service door.
I reached into my pocket and produced Al's altered key. I brought the end of the key close to my mouth and breathed on it. A thin sigil flitted out of my mouth and attached itself to the key like a thread. The normally cold metal warmed slightly and it seemed to glow in the dim kitchen.
"I have a plan," I said. "It will involve an illusion."
"An illusion?" said Finn skeptically.
I cast a glance at Thomasina. "Contrary to my appearance, I have a few tricks of my own up my sleeves. Finn, take this key and put it on the top of the bar counter. Make sure no one sees you. And no matter what happens, stay down and out of the way."
He still seemed unconvinced, but he took the key to do what I told him.
"Thomasina, call the police. Just tell them that you think a burglary is in progress."
"Not a murder?"
"No. But make it sound urgent."
"All right, I can do urgent Miss Talbot."
When the hotel clerk left, I searched through the kitchen drawers and found a butcher's knife. Then I exited the service door as silently as possible and stood behind the screen at a position where I could see the bar and the center of the room.
All of the priestesses, aside from Mistress Arial Goldenhair, were standing outside of the circle. The head priestess herself was kneeling next to Rhys' body, her arms outstretched and her face pointed towards the ceiling. She was chanting something that sounded like a bastardization of Latin. Unfortunately, it was too garbled for me to tell exactly what she was trying to say.
I had placed a temporary location spell on Al's key. I waited until I could sense Finn placing it on top of the bar. A second later, I shoved a command through the temporary link I had made with the key--demanding an illusion of the key's maker.
Black smoke began to spill over the bar and a form emerged, oily and slithering, many eyed and many tentacled. The illusion gurgled and hissed, sounding both irate and hungry.
The priestesses screamed and fled through the front doors.
"Cowards!" Arial Goldenhair shrieked.
But they paid her no heed. I guessed that this was the first time any of those women had seen something truly supernatural.
The head priestess waved the dagger in her hand threateningly and jabbed a finger towards the gibbering illusion. "Interfering demon! I'll teach you to disrupt my affairs. No one is going to interrupt the sacrifice to the moon goddess!"
I moved back from the screen. There was only one more thing to do. I swung the knife and severed the rope holding the chandelier aloft.
There was a scream and a crash.
I darted out into the dining hall toward the illusion. Once my hand touched it, it shrank back into the shape of a key. As I pocketed it, Finn popped up from behind the bar counter.
"What an impressive trick! I don't suppose you could teach me that."
I shook my head. "Sorry. Trade secret."
A stream of cursing turned me back to the center of the dining hall. Unfortunately, the head priestess was still conscious. The chandelier had missed her head, but not her body. She was pinned beneath the iron and glass contraption, her silver gown torn, and her matching turban--not to mention a golden wig--some feet away.
This time, I took out the black marble with the sleep spell I had harvested from Thomasina. I pitched it towards the high priestess. But instead of bouncing off of her forehead, it was absorbed into her skin. The woman fell silent.
Finn helped me shoulder Rhys' prone body out of the dining hall. Rhys murmured incoherently, apparently slowly coming out of whatever stupor Mistress Arial Goldenhair had put him in. As we lugged him up the stairs towards his room, I could hear Thomasina greeting the police down in the front lobby.
"I'm sorry about the chandelier," I said as we dragged Rhys into his room and put him to bed. "Just put that on my bill."
"Oh, don't worry about that," Finn replied. "There's no cost to rescuing your friend from a murderess. That was quite a bit of excitement. If anything, we'll put it on Mistress Arial's bill. If she wasn't trying to gut people in the first place, none of this would have happened."
"That's true."
He grinned. "Besides, billing her will give Thomasina her revenge for getting knocked out by ninja tricks, so don't worry. I'll be downstairs dealing with the police. If you need any help with your friend, just come get me."
When Finn walked back outside, I put a palm to Rhys' forehead, probing for any spells the Order might have put on him.
A hand grasped my wrist and weakly tugged it down.
"Rhys?"
His eyes were slitted and green. He released my wrist only to pull my head down for a hard, clumsy kiss. I tasted wine and something bitter--a drug?
Sorry, Ana. But I did get information on Blackthorne.
I flailed about and managed to tear myself out of his loose embrace. "Rhys! What the bloody hell did you think you were doing? You nearly got yourself killed!"
"I was a bit reckless, wasn't I?" his voice sounded hoarse and weak. "But I'll explain later. I have to sleep off this drug."
"What do you mean explain later?"
His eyes were closed. He had fallen asleep.
"Damn it, Rhys! Why do you have to go to sleep just at the crucial moment? I bet all your lady paramours just love that habit of yours."
If I had not been watching, I would have missed the slight upward curve of his mouth at my words.
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