contained in case the protections inside the circle failed. I caught my breath, adrenaline surging again as I peered into the pot and took out my keychain.
In spite of regular church attendance, Sunday school, and education in a variety of spiritual belief systems, my family wasn’t what I’d call particularly religious. But we were Templars, and when you were born with a mission from God, you tended to follow the general path. My keychain was a seven inch, 14k gold crucifix. It was perfect for fending off vampires, but also could serve as a faith-based focus to bless a space or guard against malevolent spirits.
It was also very useful for digging into a pot of ashes when I wasn’t sure if what was in there would take my finger off. I wasn’t about to risk my sword, or the butter knife that I’d swiped from my kitchen and spent long nights spelling. The keychain was expensive but replaceable, and beyond its spiritual significance, it wasn’t imbued with any magical powers whose presence might set off a particularly stealthy ward.
I stirred the ashes, waiting for them to settle before shining the light downward into the pot and peering over the edge. There, among the burned leaves was a shining white bone. I grimaced, wishing I’d brought tweezers. I really needed some kind of Templar readiness kit if I was going to start doing these things regularly. A multi-tool. Some rope and bungie cords. Chalk and a mirror. A Glock.
I dumped the pot over, spilling the ashes and bone onto the dusty ground. If only I’d been packing a tissue, or paper towel. Something else to add to my Templar kit. But I didn’t have any handy and this old gallery was empty of anything except broken shelving.
The moment the mixture hit the ground I felt it. Icy winds that stirred nothing. Something tickled along my spine and I jumped, spinning with my sword outstretched. It encountered only air. And the beam from my flashlight revealed nothing.
But it was cold—way too cold for an August night. My breath fogged the air in front of me and from out of the silence I heard a scream.
Some noises practically stop your heart, some send a surge of adrenaline through it, some cause you to cower and cringe. This one locked me in place. I could do nothing but stand and wait for the wail to end. It tapered off with another rush of cold, and abruptly everything returned to normal. I began sweating from the sudden change in temperature, and noted the faint noise of crickets that had been silent before.
My body desperately wanted to flee, but my mind prevailed. I still had that feeling of being watched, still felt the lingering remains of cold energy, but whatever that Big Bad had been, I got the impression it was gone. For now. Which meant I needed to hurry if I was going to figure out what the heck was going on here in Old Town Mall, and what Ronald Stull had to do with any of it. Starting with the contents of this pot.
Turning back around, I picked up the bone and hurriedly stuck it in my jacket pocket, exhaling when I didn’t burst into flames or fall through the floor. I knew a lot of stuff, but bone identification wasn’t on the list. I wasn’t sure I even had the correct texts to figure out what animal the bone was from, and the answer would be important. Every little detail was important when it came to magic. Whether the bone was a crow or a cat or a rat would mean all the difference in exactly what the practitioner was smudging to protect against, as well as give me some indication of what the icy presence had been.
But in the meantime, I had some adjoining buildings to search, and the thought gave me the creeps. Smudging an empty building either meant the area of ritual was large or whatever they didn’t want to find them was pretty scary. Either one made me think twice about proceeding. I could go home, check out what this bone was, then come back in the daylight when less scary stuff was up and about.
But that left time for someone to
In spite of regular church attendance, Sunday school, and education in a variety of spiritual belief systems, my family wasn’t what I’d call particularly religious. But we were Templars, and when you were born with a mission from God, you tended to follow the general path. My keychain was a seven inch, 14k gold crucifix. It was perfect for fending off vampires, but also could serve as a faith-based focus to bless a space or guard against malevolent spirits.
It was also very useful for digging into a pot of ashes when I wasn’t sure if what was in there would take my finger off. I wasn’t about to risk my sword, or the butter knife that I’d swiped from my kitchen and spent long nights spelling. The keychain was expensive but replaceable, and beyond its spiritual significance, it wasn’t imbued with any magical powers whose presence might set off a particularly stealthy ward.
I stirred the ashes, waiting for them to settle before shining the light downward into the pot and peering over the edge. There, among the burned leaves was a shining white bone. I grimaced, wishing I’d brought tweezers. I really needed some kind of Templar readiness kit if I was going to start doing these things regularly. A multi-tool. Some rope and bungie cords. Chalk and a mirror. A Glock.
I dumped the pot over, spilling the ashes and bone onto the dusty ground. If only I’d been packing a tissue, or paper towel. Something else to add to my Templar kit. But I didn’t have any handy and this old gallery was empty of anything except broken shelving.
The moment the mixture hit the ground I felt it. Icy winds that stirred nothing. Something tickled along my spine and I jumped, spinning with my sword outstretched. It encountered only air. And the beam from my flashlight revealed nothing.
But it was cold—way too cold for an August night. My breath fogged the air in front of me and from out of the silence I heard a scream.
Some noises practically stop your heart, some send a surge of adrenaline through it, some cause you to cower and cringe. This one locked me in place. I could do nothing but stand and wait for the wail to end. It tapered off with another rush of cold, and abruptly everything returned to normal. I began sweating from the sudden change in temperature, and noted the faint noise of crickets that had been silent before.
My body desperately wanted to flee, but my mind prevailed. I still had that feeling of being watched, still felt the lingering remains of cold energy, but whatever that Big Bad had been, I got the impression it was gone. For now. Which meant I needed to hurry if I was going to figure out what the heck was going on here in Old Town Mall, and what Ronald Stull had to do with any of it. Starting with the contents of this pot.
Turning back around, I picked up the bone and hurriedly stuck it in my jacket pocket, exhaling when I didn’t burst into flames or fall through the floor. I knew a lot of stuff, but bone identification wasn’t on the list. I wasn’t sure I even had the correct texts to figure out what animal the bone was from, and the answer would be important. Every little detail was important when it came to magic. Whether the bone was a crow or a cat or a rat would mean all the difference in exactly what the practitioner was smudging to protect against, as well as give me some indication of what the icy presence had been.
But in the meantime, I had some adjoining buildings to search, and the thought gave me the creeps. Smudging an empty building either meant the area of ritual was large or whatever they didn’t want to find them was pretty scary. Either one made me think twice about proceeding. I could go home, check out what this bone was, then come back in the daylight when less scary stuff was up and about.
But that left time for someone to
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