The Warlock's Shadow

A Minor Setback

(Three Days Until the Celestial Shadow)

Over the last week and a half we ended up using the secret library room as somewhat of a base of operations. Sasha called it our “Sanctuary of Strategy”. Lisa and I did not want to call it that but we also couldn’t think of anything else. People started to hang out closer to us in the school yard during our free period so we needed a place to keep everything secret to plan everything without anyone figuring out what was happening and stop us due to it being “unsafe”.

The room hummed with the combined energy of all our efforts. Every circle, every rune, every spell weighed for its potential impact. Magic circles pulsed and flashed as we traced sigils and recited incantations we found throughout the room and in the books we had acquired over the last several months. The lights from the magic circles cast long shadows along the walls. The pulsing and flashing lights would have made the nightmarish instruments we found on the stained table more frightening had we not moved them already.

“Is this really going to be enough?” Sasha asked while they snacked on a fae pastry. “How do we know that these spells are going to be strong enough to keep us safe?”

“It’s going to have to be,” I said. “We don’t have much of a choice.” I finished drawing out another circle in chalk on the large square table and pushed as much magic I could into it to get it to activate. I tried to put my hand over it but was met with an invisible dome.

“Yes. I did it,” I said. Lisa had brewed up the potion the Autumn Fae had told us and I was already starting to feel the effects. I just had to remember to take it every month when the moon was at a fading crescent. I focused my magic to my fingertip and smudged the outside of the circle to release the spell, which it did with a small ‘pop’.

“But, is this really all we can really do?” Lisa implored. “I mean, this has been great for my spell scripting and whatnot, but I feel like this could be, I don’t know, better?”

“Yeah, I get what you mean,” I said. “But we don’t really have much else. We just need anything and everything we can get our hands on that will offer protection so we can be safe when we do the sealing spell.”

We had worked out a few things between the information that Samuel helped find and talking with Kur and found some more details about the supposed “simple” Void sealing spell. It turned out that we needed an invocation in a previously unknown language called Enochian. We decided to go into the woods one night to practice it to make sure we were able to actually do the spell. We wanted to keep a low profile so we went as deep as we were comfortable with. When we attempted to give the evocation a bright rainbow of light surrounded us and we immediately stopped. We all had the same nervous look on our faces that night and the same realization that we wouldn’t be able to practice this spell. Because the spell was so ostentatious we needed all the protection we could get while we recited the invocation.

Sasha looked up at a small clock we had installed on a wall, “Hey guys, it’s nearly dinner time. We should get home so we don’t get too suspicious.” Since the room didn’t have any windows it was very easy to lose track of time. We nearly got locked in the school the first day we made it our base.

“Yeah, I’m pretty exhausted as is,” Lisa said as she stretched.

“Me too,” I said. “Let’s get our winged companions and head home.”

We broke all the circles we had drawn out and wiped everything down and hid our notes in the desk. I grabbed Blight’s book and a couple others we were using and stuffed them in my bag and we carefully snuck out of the room and made our way outside. Nocturne, Zero and Topaz flew to us immediately and happily trilled as they perched themselves on us. It was only about seven in the evening but the sky seemed darker than it usually did. Normally the sun was just starting to set so the sky was usually ablaze with an array of oranges, pinks, red and shades of violet. But this seemed as if the sun was almost finished setting.

We walked to the park where we had made it a routine to split up here and head home. The sliver of moon that was left in the sky made everything oddly dark. The stars were bright in the sky, and even the park seemed a bit darker than it usually did. Sasha made a point of saying so.

“Does it seem dark to you?” Sasha said. They looked around and up at the sky to see if maybe some clouds were blocking the view of the setting sun.

“Yeah, it kinda does. What’s weirder is there isn’t a cloud in the sky,” I said.

Lisa spoke up. “Did we stay later than we thought we did?” Lisa looked at her watch and confirmed that it was the time we thought it was. As we walked through the park it started to get darker still. I only noticed it was getting darker because of Sasha and Lisa telling me so. The park was unusually quiet as we traveled through it. No tweeting of birds, no sparking trails of tiny fae-folk. Come to think of it, there wasn’t any sound at all. It was like being in the forest behind the school. The air felt dense and heavy all around us. I looked around but didn’t notice anything else out of the ordinary.

“You guys feel something weird?” Sasha said.

“A little, but I think we’re just tired,” Lisa said in denial.

Nocturne sat up on my shoulder and started darting his head around. He gave some soft chortles and clicks, getting the attention of Zero and Topaz who started to do the same. Peering into the shadows, all their eyes narrowed looking all around us.

“Zero?” Lisa asked. “What’s wrong?”

All our dragons stood up and arched their backs and started to hiss like a feline. We all looked around now and still didn’t notice anything right away.

“Topaz says that Nocturne says that something doesn’t smell right,” Sasha said. We all huddled close together with our backs touching.

“Keep an eye out for anything weird,” I said. We slowly turned around keeping our backs together scanning the area. If our dragons thought we might be in danger then it must be something really bad. My eyes moved left and right. Up and down to try to find anything unusual. I saw a bush move, then saw some branches of a nearby tree rustle.

“You guys see that?” I whispered. “There’s something in the bushes and trees.”

Both Lisa and Sasha confirmed what I thought I saw. The shapes were moving too fast for any of us to track and we started to get scared. Our back-to-back safety circle grew tighter with our shared fear. My heart pounded out of my chest. Nocturne seemed to find who or what it was and was shifting their head left and right.

“Topaz says there’s lots of things around us, but they can’t figure out what it is,” Sasha said with a shaky voice.

“Kha’yian…,” Lisa whispered in elvish. Her voice also was wavering.

“Who’s there?,” I shouted. “Show yourself,” That was most definitely the worst idea I had ever had. Of all time. Everything got quieter than before, the light dimmed further. It wasn’t completely dark but as if the sun had moved behind the horizon for a few moments. Before true dark actually came. Everything was deathly still. Even the sound of our breath was almost deadened as it left our mouths.

As fast as lightning, tall shadows shot out from all around us. Like hungry wolves they moved and darted as they encircled us. They floated, unmoved. Silently staring at us. They didn’t seem to have faces so we couldn’t even tell if they were even people. They were tall and completely featureless, like wraiths and their presence radiated malice. Nocturne’s body stiffened as he hissed and let out odd noises that sounded almost like a bark, but not quite. His red eyes brightened as they pierced the darkness around us.

Two shadows looked at each other and one spoke in a strange language I never heard before to the other. It sounded harsh and heavy and old. The shadow who was spoken to seemed to nod and advanced slowly.

“What do we do?” Sasha asked clearly in panic.

“I don’t know. I don’t know. Ala’ fealna,” Lisa muttered in more Elvish.

My eyes widened, our dragon’s hissing and growling got louder as the shadow kept advancing. Before I could registar the words that came out of my mouth I said, “attack,”

Instinct took over and we all shot out whatever forms of offensive magic we could muster. Fist sized balls of fire shot out from our hands, jets of water splashed against shadowy forms. Sasha blew away a few of the shadows with a giant gust of air while Lisa was able to trip a shadow with a large rock she unearthed. The shadow fell with a grunt before getting back up just as quickly in one fluid movement showing no signs of injury or slowing down. Wait, shadows couldn’t trip. I raised my hand and shot another ball of fire towards one of our assailants and saw a face behind the shadows. I focused my vision more and saw that these shadows were people in cloaks. Cloaks that were so black they seemed to absorb all light making them look like shadows or ghosts.

The people in cloaks grabbed us and tossed us around. Our dragons flew up and did what they could by trying to claw and bite. Nocturne, Zero and Topaz all took off fast. Each one attempted to bite and scratch. They all did their best to stay out of reach as they extended their necks and bit a few across what was probably the attacker’s faces. Both Topaz and Zero teamed up and messed up one of the shadow people’s faces badly. I could see bright red splashes, in what little light there was, fall on to the grass. Nocturne seemed to follow suit and injure another figure. But they were knocked out of the sky like annoying flies. They all hit the ground with a small yip. We each shouted for them as they staggered up. The two figures whose faces were injured went up to the grounded dragons and kicked each one as hard as they could.

“Nocturne,” I shouted. But my cries barely carried past my mouth. One shadowed figure made for my bag. I managed to grab it back from them and attempted to hit them in the face with a flash of fire but without Nocturne with me all I could do was produce a whiff of smoke. My magic wasn’t fully with me yet of course. I still had two full years of treatment before I could reasonably do that without Nocturne.

We stood back up and struggled and pushed, and punched, and kicked at our assailants but there were just too many. We slung what spells we could but we had no idea what we were doing. We never practiced offensive magic. Hells, we barely started on personal defensive spells. And the only ones we knew were the ones we found that required us to draw a circle. And I doubt our attackers would sit and wait politely as we fumbled around to draw a circle just so they couldn’t hit us. I looked up and saw the arm of one of the figures swing towards me and next I knew I was on the ground again. I could feel a lump around my left eye starting to form as my vision in it started to fade.

“Alex,” I heard Lisa and Sasha shout as I could barely see them being shoved to the ground and held down. A figure rummaged in my bag and grabbed the small black book that once belonged to Blight.

“Hey,” I shouted. “That’s mine,” I lifted my hand to shoot another fist sized ball of fire towards the figure’s face, but again all that came out was a puff of smoke.

“Agh,” The figure shouted and coughed as they inhaled a lung full of smoke. Which made the perfect distraction to get up and tackle them over and wrestle the book out of their hands.

“Guys, I got it,” I said as I waved it above my head. A figure rushed towards me fast. Probably using air to propel themselves forward. They grabbed the book from my hand. Lisa lifted another rock from the ground just in time for the hooded thief to run into it knocking the wind from them. They dropped the book in front of Lisa who grabbed it as the thief hugged their stomach and groaned in pain.

“Gotcha,” She said, then was quickly shoved to the ground again and the book was wrenched from her hands. “Ow, guess not.” Like the figure before them they jetted off and were quickly stopped with some quick, mischievous Fae thinking and was quickly clotheslined by Sasha.

“Nope, I got it,” Sasha said and quickly dodged two assailants who charged them. Sasha tried to run as quick as they could but were tripped by an uplifted root. The book flew from their hands right into the next shadowy figure.

I got up and ran over to wrap my arms around their legs and tripped them. Sasha saw the opportunity and picked the book back up. I got up and ran with Sasha. I saw Lisa sneak off from the frey and tend to the dragons who looked to be in a bit of a bad way.

“Alex. Catch,” Sasha and I had become a bit too separated for comfort. I looked over as he threw the book high up into the air towards me. It hit the ground in front of me where I quickly grabbed it and did my best to begin to summon a ball of darkness in my hand to see what good it could do aside from look menacing. But before I could do much with it something hit me and flattened me, face first, into the ground.

“Enough,” A booming voice sounded. An invisible force shoved everyone to the ground and held us all down. Friend and foe alike. A larger cloaked figure walked forward slowly towards me. “I’m done playing around with children and incompetent followers who can’t manage to grab something as simple as a book.” They came up to me and knelt down on one knee.

“You don’t even really know what you have do you?” I couldn’t look up to see if I could make out their face. All I knew was that the voice was male and spoke with authority and it seemed very familiar, but different enough where I wasn’t so sure. He wrenched the book from my hand and slowly flipped through it.

“Interesting,” he mused. “You had it translated. How helpful.” He closed it and dangled it in front of me. “Where did you obtain this?” I looked at him with my brows furrowed. He slapped me hard across the face.

“I said,” he lowered his face near mine. “Where. Did. You. Get. This?” Again I gave him silence. He got up and walked away. A moment later he came back and threw Nocturne on the ground in front of me. His foot on his head.

“Nocturne,” I struggled to cry.

“Again. Where did you get the book?” His foot applied pressure to Nocturne’s head. He squawked in pain. I attempted to struggle and look up at him. He applied more pressure and Nocturn’s cries grew louder.

“Stop. Stop,” I said, tears streaming down my face out of my not swollen eye. “We got it from a book store. Crowley’s Tomes, Oddities and Bookends. The old man gave it to us to leave him alone. Please don’t hurt my friend,”

“Hmph,” the figure snorted. “That’s a good boy.” He kicked Nocturne towards me and walked away.

They gave a whistle, spoke in the harsh old language again and they all vanished as fast as they had appeared. This definitely wasn’t good. We lost the one thing that shouldn’t have ended up in the wrong hands. And these dark assailants just went and took it like candy from a baby. But that would have to wait. We needed to get safe.