-/-/-/-/- 16 hours from Now, approx. 1:00 AM
Garrens' Burrow Cemetery was in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Several tall oak trees and an iron fence formed a border around the plot of land, and the gravestones were all surrounded by healthy, green grass. The cemetery was also on a slight incline. From the center, one could turn around and look out at the city sprawled out beyond the cemetery's border. In a few weeks' time, Mason would discover that a young woman named Georgia Lass was buried there.
The cemetery was nearly deserted. The only beings to be found there were Mason, Jexter and the distorted, shifting outlines of at least four gravelings, who were all fast asleep and snoring, loudly.
Jexter and Mason were sprawled out on the ground behind a tomb. Ten feet beyond the tomb was the only crypt in the cemetery. Out of the corner of his eye, Mason watched the graveling sprawled out on top of the tomb, interested despite himself. He'd had no idea gravelings snored.
"Mace?" Jexter asked, trying to capture his cousin's wandering attention. He couldn't see the graveling at all and wondered what Mason was looking at.
Mason snapped his gaze back to him. "Hmm?"
Jexter waved at the crypt they could see just around the corner of the tomb. He held up his wand. "Ready?"
Mason glanced from the wand to the crypt and back again. "Exactly what are we going to do?"
He shrugged. "Stupefying him sounds like a good plan."
"And then what?"
Jexter sighed. "I don't know. Let's just concentrate on stopping the ritual, shall we?"
Mason studied him a moment, then nodded. "Alright." He took out his wand. "Ready."
Jexter closed his eyes a moment and took a deep breath. "Let's go."
They shot to their feet, startling the graveling, who squawked in protest. Mason ignored him as they ran to the crypt.
The door to the crypt was open. Jexter wasted no time in throwing the door open and rushing inside, Mason on his heels.
The crypt was small. It was no bigger than twelve feet across and twenty feet deep. A man sat in a lotus position at the center of the floor, bordered by a circle drawn in black charcoal. The book Mason assumed was The Most Gruesome of Dark Magicks lay open in his lap.
At the age of forty-four, Ethan, like his father, appeared older than Mason. His hair was smooth like his father's and a bald spot had cropped up on his scalp. He was thin and looked to be slightly malnourished, a stark contrast to the chubby little boy Mason remembered.
Ethan blinked up at them in surprise. "Oh, bugger-" His eyes widened as his gaze flicked back to Jexter. "Dad?"
"Hello, son," Jexter greeted him, voice cracking.
Ethan laughed. "I suppose you're here to chastise me, tell me how I've been such a bad boy."
Jexter's expression turned steely. "You have been a bad boy, Ethan. Stupefy!"
"Wait!" Mason said, eyes widening as he realized Jexter hadn't seen the circle.
The spell rebounded off of the shield created by the protective circle. It flew at and collided with Jexter before Mason could utter a counter-curse. Jexter collapsed, stunned.
Ethan got to his feet and threw a powder into the air.
Where before candles had lit the crypt, the room suddenly turned pitch black. The air was thick with the powder, making Mason cough.
He heard footsteps before he was shoved to the side. "Petrificus Totallus!" Mason called in the general direction of the fading footsteps. He heard and felt the spell leave his wand but even its light couldn't penetrate the strange darkness.
He heard the door being shoved open; the spell had missed its target. "Fuck!" Mason turned and gave chase, stumbling over his cousin's stupefied body and nearly falling flat on his face on his way out of the crypt.
He emerged into the graveyard. The powder-induced blackness hadn't penetrated outside the crypt, and moonlight and streetlights both cast long shadows on the grounds, just as they had earlier.
It took Mason a moment to spot Ethan's back. As he watched, Ethan passed through the cemetery gates and ran out onto the street beyond. Mason hurried after him. "Come back here, you cock-sucker!" he yelled.
Ethan glanced through the bars of the fence. Catching sight of Mason, he ran faster before disappearing beyond a clump of trees.
Mason ran out of the cemetery and onto the street. Once there, he ground to a halt. He raised his wand and a brilliant light shone out of its end. Its light glanced off the windows of the houses on the other side of the street. Shadows that provided perfect hiding places were now illuminated for all to see.
It was too quiet. Mason ran down the street, looking everywhere and listening intently. He reached an intersection and glanced down it in both directions, but Ethan was, of course, gone.
Mason let out a yell of frustration, then turned around and headed back to the crypt to un-stupefy his cousin.
He was halfway down the street when he heard something odd. Mason paused and listened. It sounded like something breaking or bursting free from its bindings. Puzzled, he turned left toward the sound, only to freeze and gape.
Five feet away from him was a sidewalk divided into small sections of concrete. As he watched, one of those sections burst into the air as if it had been kicked from beneath. The block rose two feet and flipped before falling back to the earth, breaking into many pieces on impact with the ground.
The block next to it flew up into the air, and as it hit the ground the next one in line followed suit. One by one, each block of concrete that made of the sidewalk burst into the air before falling back down again. A light turned on in one of the houses, its occupants awoken by the noise.
"Oh, God…" Mason prayed under his breath. He looked around for gravelings, for they were the cause of 'accidents'. He didn't see them anywhere. That meant only one thing, that the Second Rite of the Chaos Ritual had been completed before he and Jexter had entered the crypt. Order was being pushed out along with the rules that governed the world, including the rule that said that sidewalks weren't supposed to burst out of the ground spontaneously.
Mason dashed back into the cemetery and into the crypt. The powder had dissipated but the candles had been blown out, meaning his wand was the only source of light. Jexter still lay on the floor, stupefied.
"Finite Incantatem," Mason said, pointing his wand at his cousin.
Jexter shook out his limbs as he got to his feet. "Where's Ethan?"
"He's gone," the reaper replied, "but we've got bigger problems. Ethan completed the Second Rite."
Jexter stared at him. "What?" he exclaimed. He looked around at the candles, the protective circle and the book. Jexter reached into the broken circle and grabbed the book, then flipped through it quickly to the right page. "It says here that there are Five Rites to the ritual. The First Rite was to make an animal of the spellcaster's choice go nuts, in the hopes that the animal could cause as much havoc as possible."
"And the Second Rite…?" asked Mason.
Jexter turned a page. His eyes scanned the first few lines. "Fuck. The Second Rite works on inanimate objects, and can cause a lot more destruction."
"Kind-of figured that," Mason muttered. He glanced warily around at the tombs, half-expecting them to burst from their shelves in much the same manner as the sidewalk.
Just as he thought it, that was exactly what happened. Tombs shot out from the walls, startling them both. "Arresto Mementum!" Mason cried, pointing his wand at one tomb that almost ran into them.
They ran for the door, jumping over and under the flying tombs. Finally, they burst out of the crypt.
The gravelings were awake. Mason listened as they let out several angry and disgruntled squawks. Looking around, he saw why. Gravestones were overturned, broken, or not there at all. He knew the gravelings were upset because the destruction had occurred without them having a hand in it.
"Does the book say what we have to do to reverse this?" Mason asked. He caught sight of the fence and furrowed his brow. The bars and fence posts were bent bizarrely out of shape.
Jexter flipped through several pages. "Ah! Here, it says that in order to counter any of the rituals present in this book…we have to find a copy of the eleventh edition of The Most Magnificent of Light Magicks? Fucking-!"
Mason gave him a look. "You're joking. Tell me you're joking."
Jexter glared at him. "Does it look like I'm joking? Bullocks!" With a growl, he threw the book, hard, against the ground.
The reaper wanted to punch something. "Marvelous. Where, do you suppose, should we even look for something like that?"
It was a rhetorical question. Jexter didn't even pause in the litany of curses that flew from his lips to answer.