Chapter 19 - When Plans Come to Light.
The first thing Joe noticed was that the weather had taken a drastic turn while he had been getting thrown around and knocked out. The clear, blue sky that had been bright with sunshine earlier was now replaced by a gloomy, grey canvas and thick, rain-filled clouds. He could see the dark sky was brightening up occasionally when the lightning flashed, covering the clouds in slithery spiderwebs. The sound of thunder, however, seemed far away and muted, whether it was due to the sudden atmospheric pressure change, his own dwindling physical condition or something else, he wasn't quite sure.
The damn freezing cold however was hell on his battered side and he grimaced, holding his broken wrist closer to his body with his undamaged hand.
The hangout area was the size of a small indoor basketball court, with two crescent-shaped balconies jutting out on opposite sides. There was another entrance just like the one they emerged to their front, about a hundred metres away, which led to the right wing of the main building. The tables and chairs were all moved to their left in a haphazard pile, crushing all the flower pots and the vines on that side creating a large empty area to the right. That side remained undisturbed, the small garden and its greenery swaying in the chilly breeze, except for the two Hyenas who knelt next to the balcony railing completely covered by Bougainvillea vines. It was the same railing Carl Winters had jumped off only a few weeks ago.
Kent Rogers and Dave Larson - his second in command of the Anarchists - were flanked by Dylan and Darren, both of whom had a handgun pointing to the floor casually in a subtle threat. The guns seemed like an overkill to him, because both Hyenas sported blank looks on their faces, just like their minders, as if all of them were stuck in a trance with no clue about where they were or what they were doing.
The terrible two must have already messed with their minds, Joe figured silently. And everybody broke into Gray's armoury before they came to the party. Freaking fantastic!
The terrible two were sitting on the table only a few feet away from the four boys, the only table that hadn't been thrown away with the rest. They were both dressed in an all-black ensemble, with their long blond hair done up in messy ponytails. They both wore heavy makeup with prominent black lines around their eyes and blood-red lipstick. The two reminded Joe of a Gothic Rock Band that made music mostly resembling the howling of a pack of wolves.
"Welcome to the show, girls and boys," the girl on the left purred as she slid off the table with a sinuous move. Joe was pretty sure that she was the older Phillips twin, Sierra. "Glad you could make it on time before the fun started. Where's the other boy, Melvin?"
"We don't need him here, Sierra," Carl flashed a phoney grin and gestured at Joe with his gun. "Only this one."
"Looks like you already had your fun," she cocked her head to the side, scanning him from head to toe with a bored look. "Ah, well. As long as you haven't broken him too much…"
Something nagged at Joe as he silently watched the interaction between Carl and Sierra. He had a feeling that neither party was being entirely honest with the other as if they were using each other for their own purposes.
Sierra smiled and made a careless gesture with her left hand, twirling her fingers and flicking her wrist. In his periphery, Joe thought he saw something ripple in the air. When he turned to look, he could see nothing but the gently waving vines and the four guys on the balcony, with the background behind them a gloomy grey sky.
"She just warded off the rooftop," Constance muttered, just loud enough for the three of them to hear. Joe looked at her with an inquiring frown, not sure what she meant. "We are completely cut off from the rest of the building–"
"If you'd like a demonstration, darlings," this time it was Sienna who sang out as she jumped off the table to join her sister. "This is what Constance meant." With that, she threw a thick textbook up in the air. The moment it reached about ten feet off the ground, it collided with an invisible barrier that sparked at the contact. The book burst into flames midair and fell back to the floor in glowing embers and ashes. "So don't get any ideas about leaving this little party until we give you permission."
"Only if we give permission," Sierra broke into a grin that bordered on manic. Joe felt a shiver run down his spine at the realisation that they were now truly trapped with two unhinged homicidal lunatics in addition to the malevolent spirit of Carl.
"Fair warning, lovelies," she continued, as her sister nodded enthusiastically. "Not all of you might be leaving this rooftop today after all."
-oOo-
Frank woke up to a splitting headache that made his stomach roil with nausea. Opening his eyes took a lot of effort and he had to blink a few times to clear his fuzzy vision. The first thing that greeted him was a small puddle of his own blood on the cold white tile. His face twisted into a grimace on its own accord when the coppery smell hit him as he inhaled. That facial contortion aggravated the throbbing wound on his forehead, reminding him of the reason why he was lying on the floor in the first place.
Carl pistol-whipped me. He remembered when the corresponding image of the butt of the handgun flashed in his mind. Right after he threw…
Joe!
The memory of his brother flying across the corridor to land like a puppet with its string cut off sent a jolt through his system, waking him fully in panic. The short rush of adrenaline was enough to send him to his feet, albeit in a graceless flailing move, but he was finally upright. He staggered to the nearest sink before he fell down again, and clutched the edge of the counter with both hands to steady himself.
A loud gasp escaped him when he looked up and saw the image staring back at him through the mirror.
His hair was a mess - flat and blood-soaked on his left side where he had landed on the floor and the rest was sticking out in all directions. The large cut he had on the forehead was still bleeding, running down in a streak over his left cheek to disappear under his collar. There were more dark red stains on his t-shirt and jacket. He knew that head wounds tended to bleed worse than the actual injury warranted, but his haggard appearance did nothing to abate his already worsening queasiness.
I didn't have to end up looking like an extra in a horror movie, damn it! He groused to himself.
He opened the tap and started to wash his face the best he could. The wound bled a bit more but he managed to get the blood off his hair and the rest of his face. After drying himself with paper towels, he used a bunch of them to press against the wound, which helped to stem the fresh bleeding.
A silent self-assessment told him that he had a mild concussion. The nausea was still there, even though he no longer had to grit his teeth against the bile that threatened to spill out of his mouth. After a moment of slow breathing to compose himself the best he could, Frank let go of the counter and straightened.
He was slightly dizzy and the world around him had a fuzzy quality. A few slow steps revealed that his head still ached like damnation when he walked. But, all in all, he was on his feet and steady enough. A quick check on his watch told him that he had only been out for about five minutes. He had to get out of there and find his brother. He had no clue whether Joe was awake or not. He refused to even think along the lines that Joe may not have survived that landing. Carl had been clear enough that he needed Joe for a while yet. He closed his eyes and took a moment to push away the dark, scary emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. He needed a clear, focused mind if he was going to be of any use when he finally joined the party up at the rooftop.
Once he had confirmed that Joe was still in one piece, then he would have plenty of time to unleash the slow-boiling fury at the body-stealing piece of trash, Carl Winters, Frank vowed to himself.
-oOo-
Joe watched the red embers slowly float down to settle on the floor in a pile of ashes. "Okay, that's impressive," he muttered reluctantly.
"Aww." Sienna's grin turned mocking. "I'm glad you approve," she said before clapping her hands to get their attention. "Now, I have a feeling that you all finally have a clue as to what's been going on."
"You know, you could always explain to us," he said diplomatically, stealing a glance at the Quentin brothers, their blank expressions and the guns. "Save us the trouble guessing–"
"That's a reasonable request," Sierra nodded, smiling. "Why don't you all walk away from the door and go sit over there, with your two friends,' she pointed to the space by the balcony.
"Why?" Constance demanded, glaring at the unhinged twins with her fisted hands resting on her hips. Her face was red with anger. "What are you doing? Why do they all look like you've influenced them? Why do they have guns?"
"What is wrong with you?" Temperance summed up the line of her sister's rapid-fire questioning with a snarl. She stood close to her sister, wearing a matching furious scowl.
Joe looked up just in time to see another lightning bolt flash across the sky, brightening up the entire area for a moment before fading. The boom of thunder followed almost instantly indicating that the lightning had struck close. There was something familiar about the gloomy weather and the pending storm, Joe realised as he watched the unfolding drama before him. The ancient voice inside his mind was agitated, adding to his already piled-up worries.
"How about you do as asked before I start shooting everyone's kneecaps?" Carl thundered, losing his patience. He was restless and kept glancing at the dark sky in trepidation as if he was scared of the rainy weather.
"Alright, alright, we're moving," Joe said placatingly and went to sit next to Rogers. He tried not to jostle his broken wrist as he did, an act in which he only partially succeeded. Temperance and Constance joined him after a few more seconds of glaring at the twins and Carl's waving gun.
"Can one of you tell us what the hell is going on here?"
"We can do one better darling, we can show you." Sienna waved her hand again in tandem with her sister. Their fingertips sparkled in the dim light and a slight breeze wafted over, almost as if called forth by the Phillips girls.
The ash from the burnt book cleared and the entire rooftop lit up by a wholly unusual flame that appeared out of nowhere. The purple-red flame split into hundreds of smaller flames and they all slithered along the ground in circles like a bunch of snakes chasing their own tails before vanishing without a trace. The moment the last of the strange flickers faded, Joe saw on the ground what the flame had etched onto the concrete floor before them.
The red hot lines depicted circles; a big one in the middle of about nine feet in diameter and three smaller ones, each about three feet in diameter, intersecting with the curve of the one in the middle at the points of a triangle. All the circles were filled with intricate and complex interlace designs made of loops, braids, spirals, steps and curves which reminded him of Celtic knots. The longer he concentrated on the complicated interwoven lines, certain moving images of tree branches, birds and even what he thought were dogs began to appear, like in an optical illusion.
The flames had also left the thick cloying scent of burnt wood, herbs and copper mixed into the chilly air, making him feel nauseous as he inhaled. Both girls gasp loudly next to him, their wide, fearful eyes fixed on the brightly burning design.
"What is it?" he hissed.
"That's a Blood Circle," Constance muttered furiously. "They just burnt Verbena, Sage and Lady's Mantle along with blood. That's the headache-inducing smell. I've never seen a Circle like this in my life. It feels…bad."
"By the way it feels, the Circle's been there for a while," Temperance added, frowning at Sierra and Sienna who were admiring their own handy work. "Probably since Carl's death."
"Right as always, my dear," Sienna added with a proud smile. "This is a Soul-Binding Circle, I used the potent energies of Carl's final moment to draw the foundation of it."
The spirit in Melvin's body twitched and stepped further away from the circle. It seemed like he didn't like the energies emanating from the dark magic either. Fair enough, Joe supposed, considering his demise had contributed to the emergence of the damned thing.
"That's black magic," Temperance yelled angrily. "Have you two lost your minds? This is banned magic! The blood magic is outlawed for a reason–"
"The laws of the goddess always outweigh the laws of the mundane, darling," Sierra sneered. "Do try to keep up."
Joe now understood why Carl had left Frank behind before coming up here. If this involved magic, all Frank had to do was touch something, and chances were all their hard work would unravel under his influence.
"What can you possibly be doing with a Blood Circle anyway?" Constance asked urgently. "Where did you even learn how to do this? These kinds of dark magic rituals are not even available in the Council's archives!"
"Sweetheart, why would we need some inaccurate books and manuscripts when we can gain knowledge from the source Herself? You know Hecate is a very involved goddess with her true followers!"
"What have you done?" Constance's words came out in a barely audible whisper. Joe felt the knot in his gut tighten as he heard the pure terror laced in her tone and her pale, horrified expression.
Sierra looked up and closed her eyes, and a serene expression came over her face as if she was lost in a trance of a treasured, revered memory. "She came to us," she murmured with a smile. "And she did what she always does. She offered us a bargain…"
Sienna took her sister's hand into hers and interlaced their fingers. "Our goddess is going to war soon, very soon," she said in the same awed tone her sister had adopted. "She needs a suitable vessel to contain her manifestation when she does. We were tasked with paving the way for her to step into this world."
Sierra opened her eyes and looked down then, pinning them all with a dangerous glint in her sapphire blue eyes. When she spoke, there was a different quality to her tone and her words - a terrible and unstable power that wrapped around them with lethal intentions.
"In return for our services, she allows us to reach the zenith of our powers," lightning flashed and thunder boomed over her declaration in defiance. "We will be Hecate's Generals when she becomes the triumphant ruler of the worlds!"