The 31st Night
Tria A Nox Noctis
Chapter 8: Ira
Raven awoke to the infirmary. The room was dark again, the scent of the cleaners assaulted her senses. Her head was pounding horridly.
With sore muscles, she pushed herself up and blinked through the darkness. The reoccurring blackouts were becoming ridiculous. She remembered talking with Robin and… nothing.
A presence beside her bed drew her attention. Robin was slumped over the back of a chair and sleeping on his folded arms. She reached out to jostle his shoulder. The sleep hadn't been deep, he jerked awake at once.
"Raven, you're awake."
"Seems that way." The mystic pushed the blankets away from her, curling her legs underneath her and sitting. Her attention turned to the boy.
He looked terrible. The trademark mask was crooked and his hair was terrible messy, he looked too pale.
"I fear to ask what happened." Her voice was soft in the darkness.
"I haven't anything to report. You ran off after Starfire and when we caught up to you, you were unconscious and Starfire was missing. We still can't get a lock on her communicator."
Raven pressed fingers to her temple and moved them slowly in circles. Her mind was a mess and too many things were surging past their limits. "What time is it?"
"Nearly six am now," He was looking down at his own communicator.
Had she been out that long? Piles of hours without recollection, it was unnerving. "The 30th?"
He nodded in affirmation. Pressure pushed down on her thoughts. It was a day until the spell was supposed to be finished. Her emotions felt no more muted. "Do you have my book?"
"Yeah," Robin got up from his post and moved to one of the father tables to grab the intricately designed book. He passed it to her and reached up above her bed to twist the shades open. The sun was near rising and the early light spilled through the room to illuminate the two of them.
Raven cracked the book, sifting through the crisp pages for her spell. When she found it she placed the book down on her lap. Robin retook his seat and leaned closer.
"The spell in theory is to release a succubus that will take and devour parts of the intended person's soul." Raven lifted her eyes from the book to Robin, his mouth was set in a straight line, but his eyebrows had drawn together in a disgusted expression.
"In most cases it was used to eject demons or tainted parts of the soul. In my case it is supposed to devour the excess emotions I have within Nevermore so I can have a better control on those left."
"Has it worked?" The domino eyes were watching her closely.
"No." It came out sounding annoyed. "But I don't see how a spell intended for myself would be creating memory loss for others."
"And you're sure you cast the spell correctly?"
"I'm not that irresponsible Robin," She was feeling the heat of anger push on her. Why did he have to be so hell bent on finding some flaw in her. "Do you think I never learned my lesson from the last time?"
Robin wrinkled his nose at that. "No, but we have Titans disappearing and reappearing with no memory left and right. You tampered with your books, so the only conclusion I can find is that you did something wrong."
Raven glared at him. "I'll keep that in mind." She hissed it and slid off the opposite side of the bed. Taking only the book she opened a portal and disappeared from the room.
Robin glared at the bed feeling stupid and angry all at once.
--------------
Cyborg and Beastboy hung around the living room most of the day. It was neutral ground, and therefore safe from the fuming tempers upstairs.
Robin and Raven had been at their arguing for hours. They would storm out of their rooms to the other and shout at each other for a good half an hour before one of them became far too heated and returned to their rooms.
Beastboy continued up the levels of his zombie game, completely blocking the chaos out. Cyborg, however, vegged on the couch thinking. Starfire was still missing.
He didn't have a doubt that she would eventually show up, memory-less and dazed, it was just painful to wait for her. Half of Robin's anger probably came from the fact that it was Starfire that was missing this time.
He sighed, vaguely watching the zombie battle on the screen. There were more voices upstairs and the slamming of a door.
One of the spiders from Starfire's decorations hung just above his head. He plucked it off its string and held it tightly in his hand.
--------------
Raven smoldered. It was so like Robin to condemn her, punish her for her past and her stereotype. He was being completely irrational in Starfire's absence, it was so unnecessary.
She laid on her stomach across her bed. The spell book, careless tossed, mocked her from its position on the floor. It dared her to reread her spell, taunted her that it might be her fault after all.
It took only ten minutes of the curious torture for her to conjure the book in front of her.
Slowly she flipped to the page. Succumb of Souls, read the title.
""Nox noctis…"Her fingers traced the words, translating their English meaning as she read. "Devenio a mei. Animus, spiritus, effusio es meus per te essum."
She skipped a few of the same lines and slid down to one of the last lines. "Occuro ab mei animus, edo te aetas. Adfero te--"
And then there was a word, slightly smudged. She pulled the book closer and pressed the page flat to peer at the word. It looked like it said 'matum' but the end of the root word was smudged. It wasn't a -u, but a curvy -er. The -m was an -ia where the letters flowed together and seemed as though they were one.
That made the word 'materia', material and matter. It sounded right.
Something was working in the girl's mind. She hadn't originally spoken that word. Raven sat up and away from the book
As her eyes adjusted to the light, she looked at the word. From this distance the word looked like 'matum'. She followed the letters with her eyes, stopping at the t. The cross on it was so slight she couldn't see it from that distance.
She had read the word wrong. A conclusion crashed around her, pressure and heat built within her head.
After all that, it was her fault. How could she tell them? Guilt was consuming the air. She blinked hard, glaring at the one misshapen word.
Raven had read it as 'malum' and been too preoccupied to realize the translation of the word was so very wrong.
"Evil…" She whispered it to her room, her masks grinned and frowned at her in ironic amusement.
She had conjured something malevolent.
-----------
Robin beat at his punching bag. It swayed heavy and hard on the chain as he brutalized it. Why did she have to be so impossible? Why couldn't she just take one second to consider maybe it was her at fault?
Starfire was still missing. He was acting so irresponsible for his team, where were all those leadership and detective skills he had been so early-groomed with?
He took a quick roundhouse kick to the bag and the chains rattled. These were intolerant slipups.
Fists matched the leather in fury, the friction was hot and his knuckles were already aching, but he continued.
"Ira.." A voice hissed at him. His right fist stopped just before hitting the bag and his body froze.
"Devenio a mei. Te saligiare."
Robin twisted around quickly to spot the intruder. The room was empty.
"Te spiritus edo usurpo." The voice was echoing and everywhere, bounding off the walls.
The air was getting heavy and Robin gasped for breath. He had to get out of there. Gravity grew within the room and he pressed forward for the door. The hissing voice followed him.
-----------
Raven clutched the book tightly to her beneath her cloak. All anger and pride beside, she had to tell Robin.
She headed down the hallway towards Robin's room where he was likely to be fuming. Halfway there the aura appeared. It was not far off and prickled at her senses. It had to be after Robin… and all because of her selfishness.
Raven ran, beating against the waves of malevolence that pushed to keep her away. She passed Robin's room and continued down the hall. The aura was spouting from the training room at the end of the corridor.
She reached the door just as a large spike of the aura pushed into her. The door to the training room burst open and Robin stumbled out, falling to the ground.
"Robin!" Raven dropped her book and crouched over the boy.
"No… get away!" He was looking wildly around and trying to push himself away from her.
"Ira, te saligiare!" A voice echoed down the hall and the mystic was hit with a pulsation of energy. Her knees met the ground, but she propped her hands against the floor to keep herself up.
She had to… Robin… run…
Everything was getting darker and the energy was so crushing…
"Robin." She could see him still trying to escape a faceless voice. If she could get just a second or two of concentration she could teleport them away.
"Te Spiritus, a mei." It spoke into her ear. It wanted her spirit.
What had she set loose? Fury began to connect itself throughout her body, she felt the magic gather at her fingertips.
"Azarath…" She picked one hand off the floor and aimed it at Robin to draw him in. The edged of her vision was getting dark. The voice shrieked now, it's banshee cry was scratching her concentration. "Metrion, Zinthos."
Black magic expelled itself, wrapping around Robin and herself tightly. They melted through the floor and fell right through several floors.
Raven held up her bubble for as long as she could before the exhaustion caught up to her. The two crash landed on the living room floor, bringing multiple spider webs down with them.
---------
Robin awoke to a large plastic spider suspended just above his vision. He pushed it away and attempted to sit up. Besides groaning muscles, spider web was all tangled around him.
"Robin? Raven?" Cyborg suddenly appeared in his vision looking concerned, Beast Boy stood beside him but was looking to Robin's left.
Her turned his head to see Raven, still unconscious. Her cape was torn and slashed and one particularly nasty gash had cut through her suit and into her stomach.
"Wha--" Robin's throat was dry and he was unable to grasp the situation.
Cyborg moved over to Raven and placed two fingers on the lesion in her side, they came away covered in crimson blood. "We gotta get her to the infirmary." Just as quickly as he said it, the boy scooped her up and started for the living room door.
Robin stumbled up, more than a bit dazed and quickly untangled himself from the mass of webs. He followed Beast Boy up to the infirmary.
-------------
Cyborg had discreetly wrapped the wound and checked all her vitals, but other than the gash and her unconsciousness, she was perfectly fine.
"And you remember nothing?" Cyborg was sitting on a chair beside Raven's bed; Robin paced back and forth at the end.
"We were yelling at each other and I decided to go to the training room and then… I was waking up in the living room."
"You two must have fallen through the ceiling." Cyborg was looking at the pieces of spider web Robin had still stuck in his hair. The boy ran an angry hand through it and ruffled his hair up further.
"I don't know. I didn't even know that Raven was around, I thought she'd have been sulking."
Cyborg shrugged and then turned to chide Beast Boy for playing around with one of the computers.
------------
"Saligiare!" It chased her in the dark and slashed at her cape. Her ears burned and she tore away from the creature. It was never fast enough.
"Te Spiritus a mei." There was blood and eyes and pressure. She tripped and it was on her, ripping her clothes and gouging claws into her chest…
It touched her heart with serrated claws and Raven screamed.
Her eyes opened and she sat up abruptly in a soft bed. There was darkness and the acrid smell, someone flicked on the light. Raven pressed a hand over her heart, it was fine.
She shielded her eyes and tried to keep the shaking of her hands under control. The creature had that aura, whatever it was had been the thing she set loose from her book.
"Raven?" Cyborg was beside her, she hadn't noticed him. Placing a hand on her shoulder he tried to push her back into the bed cushion.
She was so sick of waking up here. "No, no, I'm fine." Monotony, she pushed his metal hand away and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Robin appeared over Cyborg's shoulder.
"Do you remember anything that happened?"
The girl took a deep breath, feeling a sharp pain as she did so. Briefly she looked down at the bandage wrapped around her midsection.
"You had a nasty cut." Cyborg informed her.
"I was heading to Robin's room and--" She paused. The information was there, but it was foggy and dreamlike. "I felt something, so I headed past Robin's room to the training room." Her hand moved and pressed to her temple. "There was something after you, I can't remember anything else."
Robin sighed. "Why were you heading to my room in the first place?"
Raven looked up at him. "There is something about the spell."
A frown pushed down on his features. He watched her critically.
The girl took a breath and looked him straight on, "There was a word smudged in the spell. I'm not sure what I conjured, but it wasn't the succumb."
Robin dropped into the chair at the end of her bed. His shoulders sank and he buried his hands in his unruly hair.
"I--" She struggled to push the words out and Cyborg looked on curiously. "I am sorry." Her tongue wouldn't allow any more blasphemous words to pass out. Robin didn't move, he was looking at the floor. Cyborg seemed strangely impressed.
They stayed that way until the sun rose on that Halloween morning.
Ira: Also known as Wrath.
Thank my latest reviewer Hopeslilangel for the revival of this story. I do appreciate all the other bribing reviews, you all are awesome. I know I hate when writers leave stories unfinished, so I won't give up on this.
One chapter left.
:Bloody Fae: