Page 28 of Chaos
A lot of witches and warlocks gathered at the site to communicate with the dead. Shifters were there for their protection, and vampires helped with some of the blood magic.
It finally came to me. We didn’t need to figure out how to get around a complicated blood spell and figure out who tricked it without breaking the library.
We needed to just ask the spirits.
Chapter 25
Ripley
I
loathedcommuning with spirits. They had all this knowledge now that they were dead, but I’d rather ask a conniving demon. Demons could be bribed. They wanted something in return for their information—something I could easily buy too, most of the time. I really lucked out finding a demon with a cherry coke fetish because some had expensive tastes.
Spirits just didn’t want to be dead anymore, or they wanted to move on. It was against the law to bury anyone without giving them the proper rites. If someone found out, you just disappeared one day. There were rumors that those people were tortured until they revealed what they had done with the body so they could put those spirits to rest.
Most everyone did the rite unless you were up to something you weren’t supposed to and didn’t want a body found. Even if you were disposing of a corpse you just killed the rites could still be performed, but criminals didn’t care about that kind of thing.
The only thing spirits ever wanted in return for their information was revenge or finding their bodies so they could move on. I knewhowto commune with the dead, but after doing it a few times, I summoned demons if I just couldn’t find the information anywhere.
I had little a choice this time. Felix was right.
The Library of the Profanes magic was stitched together with blood magic, witchcraft, and spirits. Trying to get around all the blood magic and spells without breaking the entire library was going to be impossible. The spirits would know.
I picked the one windowless room in my apartments for the magic that required total darkness and concentration. Gabriel, Felix, and Reyson were here to help. Balthazar was going a little stir crazy. Reyson was utterly oblivious to all his attempts at getting a bedroom romp with a god. Balthazar wanted a little more action, and I didn’t need his commentary during this. If someone offended the spirits, they wouldn’t talk to us.
Balthazar was off hunting down the hedge witches that were in here with Hettie. He was literally on my laptop for two minutes and had their names and addresses. He even found out the top-secret location of where their coven met. No self-respecting witch put that online for people to find. I doubted the hedge witches did either, but Balthazar still found something. I was starting to understand why he was on our team.
I didn’t even have to tell him not to hurt them. He said he would watch from a distance to see if he could gather any intel we could use. I hardly knew the vampire but I felt okay sending him out to spy. I got the feeling he was planning some sort of epic threesome with Reyson and me, but I trusted him to spy on some hedge witches.
Balthazar was already gone and I had everything set up to contact the spirits. I had protective runes drawn in chalk on the floor. Every single black candle I owned lit. I had two warlocks and a god sitting in the protective circle with me to channel. I would need all three of them because Lilith knew how many spirits would answer my call, given the sheer number of people murdered on these grounds.
We all linked hands. Gabriel and Felix knew the right words. Reyson didn’t.
“You need to chantImperiteus Strixundiswith us, Reyson.”
Fucking god. He just chuckled and shook his head like none of us had summoned the dead before.
“Show yourselves, spirits!” Reyson yelled.
Only a fucked god would be rude to ghosts. This entire process was to call them, so they were actually in a decent mood when they answered. After the chanting, you had to invoke Lilith’s name and do a lot of ass-kissing to get them to show themselves. You justdid notorder a spirit to appear like that.
Every single flame on the black candles in this room jumped to ten feet high. A ghastly wind kicked up. Great. The spirits were pissed, and there were a lot of them in here.
“Calm yourselves!” Reyson boomed.
I’d never heard his voice like that before. He usually had this silky-smooth voice that was a little playful, but it was like his voice echoed off the walls. The wind died down and the flames retreated. A single solitary spirit was in the room with us. She was dressed in Puritan garb and dripping wet. She must have been drowned instead of burned. Fucking humans and those witch tests they designed.Everyonedrowned if you held them underwater.
“Speak your peace, god,” she spat. “What do you want?”
That was certainly new.
Even if you prepped them right and did this the witch way, they never got right to the point like that. She didn’t even demand something for these answers. It was good having a god on your side.
“Someone was given a library card that wasn’t supposed to. I have questions about that.”
“Yes, they were. A promise was made, and we accepted.”
“Speak, witch! What was promised, and who was the exception made for?”
