Page 74 of Left Hand of the Divine
A resonant thrum filtered through the air, vibrating from the inner circle. It slithered across my bones like a snake, coiling around me with an unbreakable grip. I had the disturbing feeling that this was here for me.
“What is this?” Magnus asked as he took a step closer.
Rayne shot a hand out to hold him back. “Don’t gonear it.”
“We don’t know what the purpose of this is,” Rafe added.
What was this? Was it someone’s attempt at creating the God Killer?
“It looks familiar,” Erebus said as he crouched down to examine the runes.
I knelt next to him. “You’ve seen this before?”
“Not exactly,” Erebus muttered. “But there’s something in the way it’s constructed that reminds me of someone.”
Thane walked the circumference of the circle, his lips pursed and a finger tracing his Cupid’s bow. “It’s complex, with many levels. It would take a while to decipher this.”
“So why does it look like it’s been drawn by a ten-year-old?” I asked as I stood back up. We needed to secure the area and investigate further. This circle can’t have just appeared, and I had the distinct impression that someone was watching us like we were their own personal show. “Rafe, Rayne and Magnus, set up a perimeter. Let’s see if anyone is here. Thane, get hold of the Deathwatch. They should be here with Raevyn and find out what’s holding them back.”
I wanted to make sure that nothing untoward had happened to them. It couldn't be a coincidence that we discovered this necro-circle and Raevyn has mysteriously failed to appear on time. She wasalwayson time.
“Righto,” Magnus said cheerfully as he headed off with the twins.
“Be careful,” I called after them. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
Rafe smiled at me over his shoulder. “So stupid is off the table, but murder is okay. Got it.”
“No! That’s not what I’d said. Rafe!” I shouted after them, but they were gone. “Dammit. Every time.”
Atticus chuckled as he watched them disappear into the distance. “What do you need from me?”
“You said you had a little bit of witch running through you on your mother’s side, can you help Erebus and me figure this out?”
“I’m not sure how much use I’ll be, but sure.” Atticus walked around the circle, his eyes cataloguing everything he could see.
“Surely this is only a fraction of what has been stolen?” The jars in the circle weren’t massive and probably only held about two litres of liquid. So where was the rest of it?
This circle was only the beginning of whatever plan someone had.
“And the rudimentary signs will make it weaker,” Atticus mused as he crouched by the rune for ‘life’.
“But what are they trying to achieve?” I didn’t know enough about magic to understand how the runes worked. I knew the basics: it all depended on the order you wrote them in, how clean they were, and hell, even what they were written in affected the spell. These were carved into the road and then filled with some kind of shimmering dust.
Erebus stood back up and braced his hands on his hips. “It looks like a soul-catching spell entwined with some kind of transference. There are some runes I don’t understand here, but I think that’sthe gist of it.”
“And what about the jars?” Where the hell did they fit in?
“No idea,” said Erebus as he fixed me with a look that seemed to show curiosity. “But I have to admit, this magic is impressive. It would take someone with immense knowledge to put the circle together.”
I took a slow walk around the circle, looking at all the various objects lining the runes. There were animal skulls, human bones, dolls made from hair, a broken arrow, a Reaper’s token, a—
Shit. “Look at these objects.”
“What about them?” Erebus asked, peering up from one of the runes.
“I think these somehow represent us. The Reaper’s token, the skull of a dog, and I’m pretty sure that is the arrow that killed you, Atticus. I—”
A slow clap reverberated around the square.
