Page 53 of I Will Always Find You
The Black Monk, the man who housed the suffering soul of Aeneas, cried out as he pulled himself up from the ground. “No! We—I—we will not do this! We—I will not be thrown away again!”
With his hood pushed back onto his shoulders, the Black Monk screamed obscenities at his brethren, his long red hair whipping about as he pivoted from one to the other. Their backs remained turned to him; the Black Monks had lost interest in the lone wizard they had traded for a far greater power. Their avarice overtook them as they gazed upon Baba Yaga’s grimoire.
The Romani witch ran his palm against a craggy part of his stone chair, cutting it. Then, he threw the blood dribbling from his flesh wound in the face of the angry, cursing Black Monk. It splashed upon impact, causing him to balk at the sanguine assault.
“s?m!” [“Obey!”]
The Black Monk, who possessed Aeneas’ soul, instantly froze in place, shut his mouth, and nodded.
“Fascinating,” the three elder Black Monks voiced in unison. Having sensed power suddenly emanating from the Romani witch, they had all turned in time to witness the mystical act.
“Is this magic from the grimoire?” the tallest of the dark scholars asked.
“Yes, it is,” the Romani witch replied gruffly, not looking at the speaker.
In truth, it was not, but he did not want those of the Black School to know this. He wanted them to focus on the book and the promised magical power, not on him. The magic was a technique taught to him by Aeneas’ mother during his first life, before her death a few years before her son’s murder and defilement. Several centuries ago, he had renamed the ancient spell Blood Puppet.
The Romani witch had vowed never to use dark magic again, and he had kept that promise, not having cast a single spell from the book since the one he used to find Aeneas’ soul. Not since the moment he realized the price Hecate had warned him about for centuries had finally come to pass.
After twenty-one years of failing to find Aeneas using his traditional methods—spirit guides, connecting with his lover’s essence, magical tracking, and even depending on Fortuna’s luck—the Romani witch had finally resorted to dark magic.
Using a spell from Baba Yaga’s grimoire—one that required a rather unpleasant sacrifice: his own thumb, which he later regrew using Zagovory—the Romani witch had finally found the man reborn with Aeneas’ soul. He was inside the legendary Black School.
His witchcraft and spirit guides had failed him because they could not penetrate the school’s powerful protective enchantments, while the dark magic within the grimoire could.
That was also when the Romani witch realized how someone as pure-hearted as Aeneas—as all the men he had reincarnatedas were—could be in such a place. He had to accept a hard truth: the price for communing with dark forces was the corruption of not his but Aeneas’ spiritual path. The Fates were cruel indeed.
Hecate had warned him about this possibility, and he had not listened. She had stated over and over again that the Dark Arts never ask for payment in the way one expects; it is always infinitely more ruthless.
The Romani witch deftly stripped the Black Monk of his dark robe; the heavy garment dropped to the ground, pooling at his feet. The thin leather belt, adorned with an ornate gold buckle shaped like a crescent moon that glinted in the dim light, followed suit, clattering softly as it hit the floor.
The Romani witch, his voice icy and resolute, proclaimed to anyone in earshot, including those hiding within the shadows, that their deal was now concluded. “Baba Yaga’s grimoire is yours. May our paths never cross again.”
The dark scholars’ grasping, covetous hands were already upon the ancient text; they were completely uninterested in further communication with their guest or the former member of their order, who could not speak anyway.
“Let’s go, beloved,” the Romani witch whispered. Before leading the red-headed man out of the room, he draped his heavy cloak over the man’s bare shoulders, covering his half-naked form.
As the two men moved from one long twisting hallway to the next, they quickened their pace the closer they got to the final door that would lead them out of the Black School. Getting them the hell out of there fast was all the Romani witch had on his mind.
That—and the surprise he knew was coming any moment.
“Hurry, my love, we’re nearly at the exit,” the Romani witch panted, practically dragging the Black Monk along beside him down the winding corridors.
Just as he had predicted, a great commotion could be heard not too far behind them—screams and shouts filled with anger and outrage.
“I see the jig is up,” the Romani witch laughed, though a hint of worry lingered beneath his apparent mirth. He knew a battle of magic might ensue if they could not escape the Black School in time.
What his Black Monk companion did not know, but what nearly everyone else in the Black School now did, was that the Romani witch had given the dark wizards a fake book of magic; he had thrown Baba Yaga’s grimoire into Vesuvius years ago. It was a good fake, tied magically to the actual grimoire that lived within the molten core of the great mountain, for the Cannibal Hag’s ancient text could not burn, could not be destroyed, only secreted away, hidden.
Upon discovering the whereabouts of the man who bore Aeneas’ soul, the Romani witch had devised a plan to rescue his beloved and free him from the dark taint of the ominous Black School.
It had taken the Romani witch several years to forge a perfect copy of Baba Yaga’s grimoire without the aid of dark magic. He needed something of great value to negotiate for Aeneas’ release from the grasp of the Black Monks. The task was arduous, from mimicking the text’s natural and blood inks—animal, human, and daemon—the human flesh binding, the writings in dozens of ancient languages, the sigils and glyphs, and the imagery, as well as countless minute intricacies.
The simplest part was connecting the fake copy to the real one; that was straightforward magic. However, it was a magical spell with a limited duration once activated. The Romani witch had cast the spell the instant he overcame the Black School’s defences and entered their occult sanctum.
Unfortunately, the enchantment on the book had faded before the Romani witch and his obedient companion could escape beyond the boundaries of the Black School. He had always known this outcome was possible, but it was a risk he was willing to take.
The fake ancient tome, once thought to be a priceless vessel of arcane knowledge by the Black Monks, had firmly closed its cover, resisting any attempts to reopen it now that the Spell of Connection had ended and the channelled aura retreated back to the source.
