Book of Shadows

by WarlordFil

An unsuspecting woman in WWII England finds herself heir to an unspeakable legacy and an ancient grimoire--but can the Grimorum really change the outcome of the war, and at what cost? Originally published in the "Grimorum Arcanorum Anthology." Oneshot.

Book of Shadows

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Not even a word—just a series of symbols approximating letters, suggesting a word. Yet even that suggestion is sufficient to conjure up the image of a household pet.

This is the ultimate in sympathetic magick, where one thing stands for another. Flat markings on a page can represent, embody, and mean: objects, places, actions, feelings, ideas. They are a tale told without sound. Depending on their sequence, they can evoke joy or outrage or fear in the heart of the initiate who can translate them.

Logos: the Word. This is how holy books begin: in the beginning was the Word. Look around. Creation is a series of divine words, brought into being to describe an idea held in the mind of God.

***

Legend has it that during the darkest days of the Second World War, the Witches of Britain gathered together to work a mighty magic, casting a cone of power to protect their nation. It is unknown how much of the lore about this ritual is fact and how much is the invention of Gerald Gardiner, the founder of modern Wicca. Debate rages as to whether or not the British Traditional Witches are members of a lineage that stretches back, unbroken, into antiquity.

***

1940

London, England

Thick blackout curtains blocked light from escaping the buildings, so the streets were swathed in darkness. There was no moon, as though the heavens themselves obeyed the blackout laws. The English night reverberated with the screams of air-raid sirens that drowned out the deathsong of the bombers' engines.

"So much for a night off," Womens Auxiliary Air Force captain Ginger Lacey grumbled to her companion, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth, also a WAAF captain, tried to cheer her friend up. "Come on, Ginger, at least we aren't getting bored."

"I could use a little more boredom," Ginger muttered, "and a lot more drinks."

Elizabeth was not pleased either, but her comrade's attitude was grating on her nerves. "Ginger, some of our pilots have been flying three or four sorties a day. Captain Macduff actually eats in his plane. The ground crews are working around the clock to keep those planes in operational condition after the Nazis shoot them full of holes. Some of them haven't had nights off in weeks. We were lucky, Ginger, lucky to have had a whole afternoon to ourselves. Now it's time we got back to base and did our share again."

Ginger, looking appropriately guilty, nodded.

*

When Elizabeth and Ginger arrived at the base, a ground crewman looked up from his toolbox and waved to get Elizabeth's attention. "The colonel wants to see you in his office," he said.

Elizabeth frowned, said a quick goodbye to Ginger, and walked across the tarmac to the hastily-constructed wooden building that contained the administrative section. She knocked on the colonel's door; when he called for her to come in, she snapped a quick salute and stepped in, closing the door behind her.

"Elizabeth," he began, "I'm afraid I have some bad news for you."

Elizabeth's mind jumped to possible conclusions, none of them good. Was it a fellow WAAF officer? A popular pilot? Or was it family…her aunt Sheila? Sheila had been hospitalized for burns received in fighting the fires caused by the bombs. Sheila's seven year old son Charles? Had the extended family refused to care for Charles while Sheila was in the hospital—did their disapproval of Sheila's illegitimate child extend that far?

"It's your parents," he said quietly.

"My…parents?" She didn't understand. "My parents live in the countryside…there's no airstrips, no buildings, nothing that would be a target!"

"One of the German bombers was separated from its group and got lost. It jettisoned its bombs and made for home by itself. The bombs…hit your parents' house."

"How are…"

"They didn't make it."

Elizabeth's legs folded of their own accord. She sank into a chair as the colonel continued with the words of regret that everyone said at times like these. Elizabeth woke from the trance when the colonel said, "The executor of your father's estate said that it was vitally important that you receive this. You are to keep it until your nephew Charles is of age to inherit the contents." He bent down behind his desk and lifted something heavy onto the desktop.

It was an old wooden chest, bearing the family coat of arms on the lid. He looked at her with an expression of helpless sympathy—a desire to comfort her, a realization that comfort was impossible, and a weariness caused by writing far too many letters of regret to the families of aircrew who had died under his command. "I can get some general-duties airmen to deliver it to your quarters. If there's anything I can do for you, please don't hesitate to ask."

Elizabeth mumbled a numb "Thank you, sir" as she opened the lid of the trunk.

She expected to see legal papers, family photographs, heirlooms, but all the items were wrapped in thick velvet shawls that made their identities impossible to guess. As if in a dream, she picked up the first object and pulled back its black wrapping. Dust motes danced in the first light of dawn coming through the colonel's window as a book was revealed in her hands—not a family Bible or photo album, but something she'd never seen before, its leather cover cracked, its pages impossibly old, its contents written by hand in an archaic script she could barely read…

Whatever it was, she suddenly felt a sense of /wrongness/, to be looking at something so mysterious and aged in the very modern office of her very modern commanding officer in the Year of Our Lord 1940. She threw the velvet over the book, causing another eddy of dust motes, and laid it back in the trunk. The contents shifted, revealing a long, thin object in a leather scabbard. At the sight of the Canmore family sword, Elizabeth broke down in tears.

*

The war did not stop for weeping. Elizabeth Canmore forced herself to perform her duties the next day, trying to wait for breaks before she gave herself the luxury of grief. Though she was exhausted by sunset, she knew sleep would not come as she made her way back to the room she shared with Ginger. She set the large book on her desk and examined some of the other items in the trunk: a shard of stone, an amulet with a large blue gem, the sword, and finally, her father's journal.

This is the story of the Canmore family—sworn for hundreds of years to seek vengeance against the one called the Demon and the monsters who threaten humanity…

It was in her father's handwriting and she could not believe the story it told. Her father, the latest generation of a clan of demon-hunters? Who, in this century, believed in monsters any more? How could demons even exist in a world of modern technology? But to deny it was to call her father a liar.

Apparently her father had intended to teach Charles some day, but in case he did not survive that long—he should have feared the Nazis, not the demons—he had written the most vital information down, so that his nephew might carry forth the family tradition. Why Charles, and not Elizabeth? She frowned, torn between asserting that a modern woman should be just as able to do the job as a man, and recoiling from the idea of spending her life hunting down abominations that no one would even believe existed.

But the book…what was the book? She flipped through the pages of the journal.

The Grimorum Arcanorum, her father had written. With my own hands I stole it from the Demon's lair.

*

Magic wasn't real. Elizabeth had heard that said for her whole life…though, now that she thought of it, never from her father. But if the demons were real, if this monster that the Canmores hunted had kept this book of spells, then why not? Why couldn't magic be as real as the monsters?

Elizabeth was able to decipher most of the Old English; unfortunately, the majority of the spells were recorded in Latin, and she could only translate the odd word. Who on the base could read Latin fluently?

Captain Lennox Macduff. Of course! Captain Macduff had burst out laughing on his first day at the squadron when he saw the unit crest with the motto CUM AQUALIS AD ASTRA. It was meant to read "With Eagles To The Stars." Macduff had barely managed to keep his voice level as he explained to the colonel that someone had made a spelling error. The Latin word for "eagles" was "aquilis." The current motto boldly proclaimed: "With Wash Basins To The Stars."

Elizabeth felt almost guilty for imposing—Macduff was one of the most driven of the squadron pilots, barely resting. She was fortunate to catch him on the ground, pacing anxiously while a squad of ground crew members attempted to repair his shattered Spitfire.

"Captain Macduff? If you have a moment, do you think you could give me a hand with some Latin?"

"Latin?" Macduff looked over at her with a grin, as if relieved to have something else to focus his thoughts on. "Now that's an interesting question. What makes you ask that?"

Elizabeth hesitated, suddenly realizing how ludicrous her request must sound. Was there any way to paraphrase I need you to search this book for a spell to defeat Hitler that didn't sound stupid?

Silently, she unwrapped the Grimorum and handed it to Macduff.

*

Macduff—also known as Macbeth—was no stranger to magic. He was, perhaps, the only Allied airman who could go up against the Luftwaffe night after night and be unshakably secure in the knowledge that he would survive the encounter. Still, there was something in him that did not relish taunting death. Repeatedly drowning did not at all enhance the experience of being shot—it had taken him a week to get out of his shattered fighter and cross the English Channel, and he had no intention of repeating the experience. And, more importantly, he was just one man. One man could not hold off the invaders alone, no matter how immortal he might be. He had learned that lesson nine hundred years ago.

From the moment Macbeth flipped through the pages of the Grimorum Arcanorum, he knew he was looking at something special. This was not a hodgepodge of inquisitioner's fantasies, nor a cookbook of herbal lore, nor even the collected snippets of a hedge-witch's workings. No, this was, if not the Scrolls of Merlin, at the very least a powerful compendium of high magick.

"Where did you get this?" he asked the young WAAF officer.

"Maybe you don't believe in it," she blurted, "but I don't see how it could hurt. What I need to know is, is there any spell in there for…I don't know…protection? Defence? Victory?"

"A spell to defeat Hitler?"

"A spell to protect Britain," she said, and in that moment he knew he would help her. A king of Scotland could do no less for his country.

*

It took two days before Lennox Macduff was able to get back to her. He had somehow found some time to examine the book in between flying, sleeping, and eating. He approached her in the mess and gestured for her to join him outside.

She looked up at him questioningly as they walked to the corner of the airfield, away from anyone who might overhear their conversation.

"There is a spell," he said grimly, "but we can't do it alone."

"How come?"

"It requires at least five individuals to call the quarters and hold the centre," Macduff frowned, "and one of them will have to be a skilled witch or magus."

Elizabeth's brow furrowed. Captain Macduff seemed to know a lot more about magic than she had expected, which was bizarre and somewhat frightening, but also reassuring. Perhaps he could make sense of this strange world she'd found herself thrust into.

"What…what's the difference between a skilled witch and you? Or me?"

"Magic," Macduff said patiently, "is more in the caster than in the words."

"So the words don't matter?"

"Oh, they matter, but they only have power if they mean power to the caster." His brow furrowed as if he were trying to think of how to explain a difficult concept. "Look around you. There's an energy flowing through everything. It's in the air we breathe, in the food we eat. It moves the clouds across the sky, moves the plants out of the seeds, moves our thoughts and emotions. A magician can tap into that energy, amplify it, and move it in the direction he desires. Without that ability, you're unleashing power without control. It would be like putting a five-year-old in the pilot's seat of a Spitfire and expecting him to fly it. He either wouldn't know how to start it, or he'd make a terrible mess."

Elizabeth said, tentatively, "And you don't…"

He laughed. "Elizabeth, simply because I have a bit of familiarity with the ways of the ancients doesn't make me an accomplished sorceror. I could cast a minor spell, but we're talking about a cone of power large enough to protect an entire nation."

"So are you telling me we shouldn't even try? That because you're not a…an arch-mage, that it isn't worth the attempt?"
Macduff smiled. "I said I wasn't a high-level witch or magus. I didn't say I didn't know where we could find one."

*

The sign above the door read INTO THE MYSTIC. Wedged between a ladies' dress shop and a bakery, it was the kind of store that was easy to overlook. The front window was covered by a heavy drape; although numerous books and curios were attractively displayed on shelves, it was impossible to see into the shop itself.

"Maybe you'd better prepare yourself," Captain Macduff said, with a hint of amusement in his voice.

"I've spent the last two days reading magical spells in Latin under the pretext that they actually work," Elizabeth replied. "I think I'm immune to strange sights."

"If you say so." She wondered at his sly grin as he pushed the door open and stepped inside.

A waft of incense swirled through Elizabeth's nostrils as she entered the shop. She saw shelves of books, a rainbow of candles, tumbled stones and crystals displayed in small baskets. There were racks of bottled herbs, old-fashioned parchment and quills, and clothing made of exotic silk and velvet and stitched with intricate designs. But all the strange merchandise was nothing next to the shop's proprietors. They wore medieval-style clothing, feathered capes like wings, and fabulous masks…the male a lion, the female a unicorn.

"Macbeth." The female frowned….frowned? Elizabeth wondered. Could there be a mask realistic enough to convey expression that way? And she was using the wrong name. "What brings you to our shop?"

"If you're here about Demona, we haven't seen her," the lion added. "Now leave us be."

"Leo," Macduff replied, "you wouldn't tell me if you had, I'm sure, but I've got other concerns on my mind." He gestured to his uniform. "Namely, the war. And ending it." He gestured to Elizabeth. "Show the lady what you've got."

Elizabeth tentatively handed the Grimorum to the unicorn woman. The strange female gasped as she opened the book and began to leaf through its pages. "Macbeth, a marvel…"

"We want to use a spell to guard this nation," the captain said. "To protect our homes. And we need five witches to do it, including a high-level magus. Una, you're the best I can think of."

Leo curled his lip. "What do you think?" he asked his partner.

"I think we shouldn't get involved," Una said firmly. "This war is a human concern. Non-involvement. That's been the policy of our clan for hundreds of years."

"But Griff…"

"Griff broke that policy and paid the price for it. Griff and Goliath lost their lives, and for what? The bombers still come over. We have our own protection spell on this place. Let the humans solve their own problems."

Macduff pressed his lips together. "I'm not asking for your personal aid, gargoyle. I ask only the opportunity to contact the witches of England."

Gargoyles. Elizabeth stared at the two shopkeepers. So that's what they were—the same demons that the Canmores hunted. What would her father have said, if he knew that she was working magic right alongside the de…the gargoyles?

She could only hope that he would say some situations required a deal with a demon. Right now, she knew she feared the Nazis far more than the gargoyles.

Macduff continued, "The witches would patronize this shop; you would know how we could get in touch with them. I would search myself, but our country cannot afford to wait. Intelligence says we could fall to the Nazis in as little as three weeks. And if the Nazis storm these shores, do you honestly believe your clan will be safe?"

Una and Leo exchanged nervous glances; then Una bowed her head, and scribbled something on a small roll of parchment.

*

The address that Una had given them turned out to be the residence of a couple named Dionne and Gavin Forrester—the High Priestess and High Priest of one of the hidden covens of British Traditional Witches. Once Macduff showed them the Grimorum and explained what he and Elizabeth were planning, the Forresters said they would be pleased to help. The knew who else they could ask to assist in the great spell.

"Are you sure you want to be involved in this?" Macduff asked Elizabeth. "I could take the book, make sure the spell was cast."

"The book was given to me," Elizabeth said. "Like it or not, it is my responsibility to see this through." Charles Canmore, after all, was just a child. Once the war was over, then Elizabeth could turn her attention to the question of the de…the gargoyles.

Eight days later, on the night of the full moon, Elizabeth and Macduff travelled to a remote estate owned by one Hugh Lissie, who was an Elder in the Forrester's coven. The coven's ritual circle was located deep in the woods of the Lissie estate, safe from prying eyes. As Elizabeth stepped into the center of the circle alongside Gavin Forrester, she looked around the clearing: at the four magic-workers who stood at the points of the compass, and the circle of over a hundred witches from all across Britain. She squinted, certain that at least one or two of the cloaked figures were gargoyles, like Una and Leo. Unreal. It was as though opening the Grimorum had taken Elizabeth to another universe.

"I call upon the Watchtowers of the East," Macduff said, his Scottish accent ringing through the forest. "Bring your powers of healing to guard our nation!"

"I call upon the Watchtowers of the South," intoned Dionne Forrester. "Bring your powers of courage to guard our nation!"

"I call upon the Watchtowers of the West," chanted Hugh Lissie. "Bring your powers of transformation to guard our nation!"

"I call upon the Watchtowers of the North," murmured a female witch with a Welsh accent. "Bring your powers of stability to guard our nation!"

In the center, Gavin Forrester lifted his wand to the skies. "I cast this circle of ancient power between the worlds, in a time that is not a time, in a place that is not a place. Be thou the barrier between the realm of flesh and the realm of spirit, containing the power we shall raise within, until it be set free to work our will!"

Elizabeth, standing beside Gavin Forrester, could not see the circle, but she could /feel/ the energy, like electricity, flowing from Macduff to Dionne to Lissie to the Welsh girl, then back to Macduff, round and round, arching above them like a dome, enveloping them in a sphere of power. The Grimorum Arcanorum began to pulse in her hands like a beating heart.

Gavin nodded to her. She took a deep breath and opened the book to the page that Macduff had marked. She spoke the unfamiliar Latin words in a clear and ringing voice; though she had recited them until she knew them by heart, she felt strong and confident in seeing them before her. Looking at them, she knew she would not make a mistake. Her heart was filled with desire to protect this country, to make sure no one else died the way her parents did.

The words fell from her lips and began to create reality; from her thoughts into the world around her, ideas made manifest. She could feel the creative power building, building…. All around her, the four witches at the Quarters were raising their hands from their waists to their chests and finally up over their heads, releasing the power, birthing the magick, freeing it…

The power rushed through her and didn't stop. It was as though she had thrown a switch and was now unable to turn the current off.

The Welsh witch faltered. "Why isn't it stopping?"

"You need to put a release phrase on the spell!" Macduff called to her.

"What's a release phrase?" Elizabeth asked, her head dizzied by the rush of energy.

"All magic must have a release phrase," Gavin said breathlessly, "a means by which the spell can be undone."

"Undone?" Elizabeth repeated, bewildered by the strangeness of it all and the onslaught of strange images rampaging before her eyes. She saw great smoking chimneys and avenues of red flags and vaults of stolen gold, as if she walked in the dream of a madman. "But we don't want it to be undone…"

"So make the catchphrase something impossible. Something that Hitler wouldn't be able to accomplish in a thousand years," Dionne urged her. Elizabeth could hear her voice, but could not see her face through the rush of mad dreams, now touched by flakes of falling snow. In the distance she saw exotic twisted towers…the Taj Mahal? No, the Kremlin. She sought to surface from the alien imagery and focus on something she remembered from her childhood. Something that reminded her of her parents.

She remembered her father, reading the legends of King Arther to her before the fireplace, and she latched onto that memory and spoke the words:

"Guard this island of England

Free of all invasion

Free of all who would enslave its people

Until the spell be broken by the blade of Excalibur,

Wielded by the Once and Future King!"

The energy blasted through them all, one last great surge, and then…a sensation like plummetting from a height, a fall to earth, a sudden dizziness. Gavin put his arms around her shoulders to steady her and guided her to her knees. Gently he showed her how to press her palm into the soil and ground herself, reconnecting with the earth and the reality around her.

*

"Do you think it worked?" Elizabeth dared to ask Dionne and Gavin.

"Something worked," Gavin said quietly. "I've never felt such power."

Dionne murmured, "Now we must let go…try not to think about it. Trust the magick; leave it free to manifest as it sees fit."

Macduff, however, seemed troubled. He glanced at Elizabeth and asked "What possessed you to make that the release for the spell?"

Elizabeth shrugged. "I heard a lot of King Arthur stories as a child. And, come on…what are the odds that King Arthur himself is actually going to show up here, on the White Cliffs of Dover, in 1940?"

She swallowed dryly. What were the odds that her father was a hunter of demons? That there were a pair of living gargoyles running a shop in London? That a magic spell would save Britain from the Nazis? "King Arthur….isn't still alive, is he?"

Dionne laughed. "Goodness no. Or at least, not to my knowledge."

Macbeth sighed. "I suppose it's some consolation that if King Arthur did suddenly appear, he certainly wouldn't hand the country over to Hitler."

"Exactly," Elizabeth said, and then smiled. "You know, I think I've been reading that spell book too much. For a second I was afraid you were going to tell me you'd actually seen King Arthur in the flesh."

"I'm not that old," Macbeth replied, and as Elizabeth burst into gales of laughter, his eyes darkened.

Across the circle, Elizabeth noticed the Welsh witch mouthing words while fingering a pendant on a chain around her neck. Squinting, Elizabeth thought she'd read the other woman's lips—until the spell be broken by the blade of Excalibur—was she repeating the release phrase? Then the Welsh witch noticed Elizabeth looking at her and dropped her pendant back under her cloak. Elizabeth wondered if she'd been inadvertently rude and turned her gaze away, but not before she saw an eye-in-the-pyramid design engraved upon the pendant.

*

Macbeth raised his head to gaze upwards into the diamond eyes of the stars.

King Arthur's name reminded him of the centuries he had spent chasing after the Scrolls of Merlin. Perhaps the ancient wizard had known magic strong enough to break the curse he carried, the curse that bound him to the one called the Demon. The Grimorum did not. He had checked.

Where was Demona tonight? Was she in Germany, whispering to the Teutonic warlords, or seeking targets of opportunity here, somewhere in the English night? Though he was certain the bloodshed of the war would please her, he reminded himself that it did not mean that she was personally involved in the conflict. For all he knew she was in South America, Africa, the moon….somewhere far from this bloody war.

Well. First he would fight for the freedom of his native Scotland. Then he would find the Demon, and put an end to her personal war against humanity, and put an end to his own demons as well.

*

The cone of power did not raise an impenetrable barrier in the clouds; the German bombers continued to sail freely through English skies. Tired men continued to make mistakes, sometimes with tragic consequences. Innocents still felt pain they had done nothing to deserve. British shores still lay vulnerable to German amphibious attack craft.

But those attack craft never came.

Somewhere in the darkness, a seed of an idea took form in the mind of a madman. It spread slowly through his dreams, singing its siren song—to seek lebensraum in the east. To conquer where even Napoleon had failed. To leave a crippled England to its oceanic isolation.

Russia…

He would not be moved from his decision. Hitler's hand swung the tiller of history, pointing the wrath of the Nazi war machine towards Moscow, away from London. Russia, where the German army would freeze in the relentless cold, where a populace made stubborn by the unforgiving climate would prove no more inclined to surrender than the British. Hitler, like Napoleon, would fail.

And Britain was spared.

Call it a tactical error. Call it luck. Call it magic.

To Elizabeth Canmore, the results were the same.

***

In the twentieth century, the postmodernist critics took aim at the power of Logos. The Word was not perfect; the Word was incomplete. There would forever be a gap between the signifier (the word) and the signified (the object, place, action or concept which the word stood for). C-A-T could never be a cat; words can never wholly convey meaning in its entirety, and sometimes unintended meaning could slip in.

Sometimes "close" is good enough. Sometimes it is not.

Consider what is unwritten—what the words fail to convey, or convey by accident—what lies between or beneath or behind the lines.

***

It was estimated that Britain was less than three weeks away from capitulating to Nazi Germany; however, before the breaking point was reached, Hitler turned his attention to Russia. Britain remained free, providing an important staging ground for the invasion of the Continent in 1944.

*

Captain Elizabeth Canmore of the WAAF went missing in action while on a flight to deliver a fighter plane to Norway. She was presumed dead, though her body was never found.

*

The Grimorum Arcanorum was discovered in Elizabeth's personal effects by Ginger Lacey, who mistook it for junk and sold it to a secondhand shop. Una, Macbeth and Elizabeth's aunt Sheila Canmore all made bids to acquire it, but by the time they tracked down the shop where Ginger had sold the volume, it had already been purchased by someone else. Una's attempts to contact the buyer, one Dominique Destine, proved fruitless.

*

It might be theorized that Sheila Canmore's meeting with the mysterious Ms. Destine on the evening of November 23, 1946 was successful; however, since Sheila did not survive until sunrise, her story was never told.

Charles Canmore, though he was only thirteen at the time, swore revenge.

*

Dionne and Gavin Forrester went public in 1947 with the knowledge that there were still Traditional Witches practicing the Craft of the Wise in modern England. Seven years later, the last of the British anti-witchcraft laws were repealed. But some of the British witches still hold secrets, particularly regarding their hand-copied facsimile of the Grimorum Arcanorum and the crone known only as the Dream-walker of London.

*

In 1980, Charles Canmore's quest for revenge proved fatal. But by then he had passed the torch to his children.

*

In 1991, the Grimorum Arcanorum came into the possession of a young David Xanatos thanks to the mechanations of Macbeth's ancient nemesis. It led Xanatos to a wild undertaking: to raise an ancient Scottish castle above the clouds.

*

Macbeth was destined to be disappointed by the Scrolls of Merlin.

*

King Arthur landed on the shores of England in the Year of Our Lord 1997. His first act was to drive Excalibur into his home soil to celebrate his return.

Somewhere in the Black Forest of Germany, underneath the sigil of the Illuminati Society, a general laughed and marshaled his troops for war.