Black Magic (Howl #4) (14 page)

Chapter 17

“Someone beckoned us?” the woman, who was standing in the center of the three spirits, asked as the room stopped shaking. Her body was transparent, and she had long, dark hair and delicate features, but it was easy to tell from her toned body that she had once been a werewolf.

“Nadia, I thought we already went over this. Young people of today don’t use the word ‘beckoned’,” the short, stocky man standing next to her said impatiently. He turned to look at them. “Do any of you even know what ‘beckoned’ means?”

“Of course we know what beckoned means,” Emma replied matter-of-factly.

“You do?” Colby asked, glancing around her shoulder.

Emma just rolled her eyes at him and huffed before moving out of his lap.

The third spirit, the tall man on the right, smiled at them and bowed. “Hello, I’m Bennett. It’s an honor to meet you.”

“I’m Nadia,” the woman said, “and this is Dante.”

“It’s nice to meet all of you,” Samara replied with a smile. “I’m Samara, and these are my pack members—” she started to say, but Dante interrupted her.

“There’s no need for you to introduce yourselves. We already know all about you. We’ve actually been residing in this house for years now. It’s nice to finally see some life around here for once. It makes our lives . . . or should I say deaths . . . much less boring.”

“So, you’re ghosts then?” Luke asked.

“We prefer to be called spirits,” Nadia replied matter-of-factly. “We lived many years ago.”

“Did you know my grandfather?” Samara asked. “His girlfriend owned this house before she died.”

Bennett nodded. “We used to help him, back when he used to fight against the Vyka and other practitioners of black magic.”

“Do I dare say that Joe McKinley wouldn’t have been half the werewolf he was without our help?” Dante asked, placing his hands on his hips confidently.

Nadia bobbed her head in agreement. “You speak the truth.”

“Okay, I gotta be honest. I don’t really care that you guys made Joe McKinley powerful,” Steve said. “I’m just dumbfounded we can really see you. I never thought ghosts existed.” He had a scared expression on his face; he was afraid of the spirits that stood before them.

Dante laughed. “Don’t worry, son. We’re bona fide spirits.”

“Bona fide? You mean you’re spirits without bones?” Emma questioned.

Colby chuckled. “Bona fide means genuine. I think that means that they’re good spirits. Right?” he asked, turning to Bennett.

Bennett nodded. “Yes, you can say that about us. We are called the Trusted Ones because we are honest and true. We don’t take part in the dark arts, like the spirits the Vyka have been conjuring.”

“Are you the only ones who are trusted?” Emma asked, quietly. “I mean, are there others out there like you who we can trust, too?”

“Of course there are others,” Nadia replied with an eye roll. “We’re all over the world. Most of us spend our days sleeping, though. Or people watching. I don’t think any of us have been conjured since Joe needed our help to fight the Vyka.”

Samara felt a wave of relief wash over her body. It somehow made her feel calmer knowing that these spirits—these Trusted Ones—were the same ones who had helped her grandfather ward off black magic. It made her feel like she could trust them even more. “Can you tell us how you can help us?”

“We’ll kill the other spirits,” Dante explained.

“Or we’ll try to, at least,” Bennett agreed. “Have you ever witnessed anyone using black magic kill someone?”

Samara nodded. “Yeah, Jason has killed in front of us before.”

“Did you notice anything out of the ordinary?” Bennett asked.

She hesitated; when he had killed Lilly, it didn’t seem like there was anything different about her death than any other werewolf fight. “No, there wasn’t anything weird or unusual about it if that’s what you’re asking.”

“That’s probably because he wasn’t actually using black magic during that kill,” Nadia explained. “What normally happens is the fighter using black magic calls upon the bad spirits—or the dark spirits, as we sometimes call them—and then they do all the work for them. The wolf can kill without even touching who they’re trying to kill.

“Of course, the fighter does need to feed the spirit, if you will, which is why they must make human sacrifices regularly . . . during the full moon. After the dark spirits kill someone, they are usually very hungry. Feeding the spirits keeps them happy enough to keep coming back and killing again. It also makes them a lot stronger, though. The more often they’re fed, the stronger they’ll get.”

Samara felt a sick feeling form in the pit of her stomach. How could Declan and Seth knowingly be feeding these monsters?

“So, even though these spirits are really strong, you can kill them?” Luke questioned. “I mean, wouldn’t that have to make you extremely strong and powerful, too?”

“I don’t want this to sound like a cliché, but it really depends on how much the wolves we’re helping believe in us,” Bennett replied. “It’s sort of like fairies. In order to conjure then, one must believe that they exist in the first place. When you need our help, you must put all of your faith in us.”

“What Bennett’s trying to say is that we are as strong as you believe us to be,” Nadia explained. “If you don’t believe, we won’t be able to do very much to help you.”

“During a fight, all we’d need to do is think about you?” Chris asked, leaning forward, seemingly interested in what the spirits had to say. “And you’ll just be able to show up and chase away the bad spirits or do whatever it is you do?”

“Well, that’s mostly all it requires,” Nadia replied, nodding in agreement. “The other part is you will need to light white candles. And then we will need to either outnumber or be strong enough to conquer the dark spirits that we’re up against. We’ll then go on to either kill the fighter you’re trying to beat if we believe that you’re unable to do so yourself, or we’ll at least ward off their powers—so to speak—enough so that you will be able to kill them yourself.”

“You won’t see us during that time, though,” Dante chimed in. “We’ll remain invisible, just like the dark spirits will. That’s mostly so that no outsiders see us, but it also gives us a one up. You see, the dark spirits are unable to see us when we’re not visible. They, on the other hand, form a red cloud-like aura that only we can see. It helps us know where they are, even though they can’t see us.”

Luke cleared his throat. “There was this one time when Jason kind of disappeared into thin air. Did that have to do with black magic?”

Bennett nodded. “Yes, he was likely shielded by one of the spirits. If we wrap ourselves around you, you won’t be visible to anyone else.”

Samara hesitated. All of this sounded sort of simple, but she had a feeling that there was a complexity to it that she didn’t understand yet. “So, this is what made my grandfather so powerful? Just calling on you guys for help?”

“Well, that’s the only thing that we know of that he did,” Bennett replied with a shrug. “There may have been more explanations for his powers, but he never let us in on any of them if there were.”

Luke rubbed his palms together. “Well, I think we’re all ready to go after the Vyka soon . . . Jason, in particular. Will you be able to help us out when the time comes?”

“As long as you follow the steps we said, we’ll be there . . . as long as we can,” Nadia replied. “Just remember that you must think very hard about how much you want us there. The more we’re wanted, the easier it is for us to come.”

“Can you come for only one person if necessary?” Steve asked. “Or does our whole pack need to be there?”

“It’s possible. We’ve done it before. The only good thing about being summoned for one person is that there usually aren’t too many dark spirits for us to ward off,” Dante replied. “There have been times where there was a larger crowd that we were trying to help out, and we weren’t able to do much of anything because of the number of dark spirits that had been invoked. Their power was just so much greater than our own power, and I think there wasn’t enough faith in us for it to work.”

“I’m sort of confused,” Emma spoke up. “They’re dead, but you kill them? How does that work?”

“It’s more about killing the evil inside of them than actually killing them. Sometimes, we see the dark spirits once they become good spirits. Dark spirits can eventually become Trusted Ones once the bad is gone,” Nadia explained.

“Can they kill you, too?” Samara questioned.

“Yes. But when they kill us, we’re gone for good. When we kill the evilness within them, they get a second chance . . . if we are able to rid them of evil.”

Luke narrowed his eyebrows. “So, wait, let me get this straight. You
might
be able to help out, but there’s still a chance you won’t be able to do anything at all? The spirits may stay evil, and we could still die if you don’t get to them in time?”

“That is correct,” Bennett agreed, nodding his head.

“So, there’s really no guarantee that you’ll be there to help us when we need you,” Luke went on.

“Well, we might be there, but . . . no. We might not be able to do anything.” Bennett lowered his eyes to the ground.

“This feels hopeless,” Luke muttered under his breath.

“Hey, don’t be so negative. The more faith you put in us, the more likely it is that we’ll be able to help you,” Nadia said, but Samara could tell from the look on Luke’s face that he didn’t feel reassured by her words.

“There’s something else you could do to help your case,” Dante chimed in.

“What?” Samara asked, glancing over at him.

“If you can find the Vyka’s crimson candles, you could try hiding them.”

“What exactly is a crimson candle?” Colby questioned, a look of curiousness in his eyes. “I’ve never actually heard of it before now, and I’ve done a lot of research on black magic.”

“That would be because it is the one thing that black magic practitioners keep to themselves. They don’t share information about them with anyone else. You can think of it as something that only a secret society would know about,” Bennett commented. “Whoever wrote those stacks of books that I’ve seen in those boxes you brought in here probably had no personal experience with black magic.”

“Crimson candles must be purchased from someone with a divine understanding of black magic. Most black magic practitioners do not even know how to make them. It’s sort of like buying the candles from a witch doctor, if you will,” Nadia explained, sitting down cross legged on the ground and running her hand over one of the candle flames, fascinated by the glowing light against her own glowing skin.

“Crimson candles are made from a secret mixture, but they do contain blood from the members of a pack called the Abdia,” Nadia continued. “They were the first pack to ever experiment with black magic, so it is often said that they have a closer personal relationship with the dark spirits than any other pack who summons them. The Abdia are the ones who originally began to feed the dark spirits, so they will be forever indebted to them, so to speak. For this reason, they recognize the scent of Abdia blood easily, and come once they have been invoked.”

A light went off in Samara’s mind. “So, if the candle is what conjures these spirits, wouldn’t you be able to blow the candle out and get rid of them, then?”

“It would make our lives so much easier if it worked that way, but unfortunately, it doesn’t,” Nadia replied, matter-of-factly. Once a spirit has been evoked, blowing out a candle isn’t going to get rid of them.”

“Crimson candles aren’t easy to find,” Bennett explained. “They’re very rare, and their wicks are said to be time consuming to create. So, if you can get ahold of the crimson candles that they’ve been using, it will likely take them quite some time to get their paws on new ones. It could buy you some time to plan a successful attack, at the very least.”

Samara sighed. “This all sounds great, but there’s one big problem. We have no idea how to tell if a candle is a crimson candle. What do they look like?”

“That is the tricky part about this whole plan,” Nadia agreed, her light green eyes filling up with a look of concern. “Crimson candles can easily be mistaken as regular candles. They do not have any identifying features, aside from the fact that they are red.”

The sight of red candles flashed in Samara’s mind, but the memory quickly passed. “I know I saw red candles somewhere recently, but I forget where they were.”

“I know exactly where you saw them,” Colby replied knowingly.

*

When Samara, Luke, Colby, and Emma arrived at Colby’s old house an hour later, they found that the back door had been left open on a crack.

“That’s odd,” Colby murmured. Shrugging, he opened the door anyway, and led them all inside the house.

The house was dark and completely silent inside. It made it seem really lonely, and it gave Samara bad vibes.

It wasn’t until they entered Darren Jackson’s entertainment room that the familiar musky scent . . . the same scent that she’d picked up on in her own house . . . filled her nostrils.

Someone from the Vyka pack had been in the room.