Page 26 of Whispers of the Magical Forest

FIONA

We crouched behind the crumbling stone wall. Magical energy crackled around my fingers as I prepared my distraction. The corrupted wards pulsed with sickly purple light against the darkening sky. My earlier bravado about explosions aside, even I had to admit this situation called for something special. The kind of special that usually ended with Aislinn giving me that worried look she'd perfected.

"Ready?" I whispered to Violet and Aislinn. They nodded, their faces grim in the unnatural light. My magic stirred restlessly under my skin. It was responding to the ancient power that saturated the Blackwood manor. It felt like being too close to a live wire. I had the distinct sensation that touching the wrong thing would end very badly.

"Try not to bring the whole place down," Aislinn murmured as she scanned the perimeter for any sign we'd been noticed. "We still need to search it for clues."

"No promises," I replied with a wink, though my heart wasn't really in the humor. The weight of what we were dealing with pressed against my chest like a physical thing.The cult, the shades, the First Ones. It was the kind of mess that made me wish I'd stayed in bed that morning. Or at least had another glass of that Fae wine first.

The magic formed into spheres of pure kinetic force. They were grenades made of condensed chaos. Perfect for creating the mother of all distractions. Each orb pulsed with a different frequency. They were designed to mimic wildlife and hide our presence. It was the kind of complex spell work that Grams taught me. She’d been trying to cram a lifetime of learning into the last couple years. She had to keep our magic from me my entire life after she and my mother discovered I was a nicotisa.

“Three.” I counted down as the power built. "Two." The wards pulsed again and created a window of opportunity. The timing had to be perfect. "One."

I released the spell and sent multiple orbs of magical energy arcing through the air. They struck the ground around the house in a carefully orchestrated sequence. The resulting explosions were honestly rather beautiful. If you were into that sort of thing. Which I am. The blasts sent snow and debris flying in all directions, created a spectacular light show. It drew the attention of every minion in the vicinity.

"Subtle as a brick through a window, aren't you?" Violet muttered before she moved forward. Her magic reached out to probe the weakened wards.

"Hey, it worked, didn't it?" I grinned as we avoided the minions investigating the disturbance.

"Now!" Violet whisper-hissed as she finished working on the wards. Her magic was enhanced by her phoenix heritage and blazed golden against the purple corruption for a split second. Aislinn's Fae power joined hers and her wind held the temporary breach open. The combination of their magicwas like watching an artist paint with light. It was beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.

We slipped through the gap and into the house. The foyer looked like something out of one of those gothic horror films Violet loves so much. There was dusty furniture, cobwebs, and that distinct feeling that we really shouldn't be there. "Well," I whispered as we moved deeper into the house, "this is creepy. Anyone else expecting the portrait eyes to follow us?"

"Don't even joke about that," Aislinn shuddered. "Remember that haunted gallery in Bath?"

"How could I forget? My hair didn't lie flat for a week after that ghost tried to possess me." That had been our last attempt at a relaxing outing. Even our day trips ran into problems.

The walls were covered in symbols that matched those we'd found on the victims. They pulsed with that same sickly purple light. The corrupted magic made it hard to breathe. It was incredibly unpleasant to continue the journey through the house. But that didn’t stop the Backside of Forty. We were stubborn like that.

"These markings," Violet said, examining one particularly complex pattern. "Is the whole house one big ritual space?"

"I really hope not," I muttered. "It’s probably to keep up the aesthetic. Nothing says 'evil cult headquarters' like turning your entire house into a magical circuit board." Aislinn snorted and Violet smiled as we continued in silence.

"This way," Violet murmured after a moment. She was pointing toward a corridor that seemed darker than the others. My magical senses were going crazy and picking up traces of shade energy everywhere. "Something powerful is down there. Can you feel it?"

I nodded. The magic was like a weightpressing around me. It made each step feel like walking through molasses. "Yeah," I replied. "I’m getting some seriously bad juju vibes."

"Must be Tuesday," Aislinn quipped while her hand was tight around the protective amulet she wore.

We followed Violet's lead. I cast a silencing spell so our footsteps made no sound on the ancient floorboards. The corridor led us to what must have been a study. Books lined the walls. Their spines were decorated with symbols that moved. It was the massive oak desk dominating the center of the room that caught my attention. Its surface scattered with papers and ritual implements.

I walked over and scanned the items. "Anyone else feeling like we just walked into the evil version of Grams' study?"

"Grams doesn't keep bloodstained ritual daggers next to her paperwork," Violet pointed out as she gestured to the implements on the desk. Fresh stains marked their surfaces. I really didn't want to think about what – or who – they'd been used on.

Notebooks filled with cramped handwriting detailed the process of ‘preparing vessel’ in clinical, horrifying detail. The author's enthusiasm was evident in the way certain phrases were underlined multiple times. ‘Perfect resonance achieved’ and ‘successful separation of essence from vessel’ featured prominently.

And there, pinned to the wall, was a map of Hambledon. Locations were marked with push pins. Red strings connected different points and created a pattern that made my magical senses scream in warning. The inverted pentagram was fitting in the situation, given its association with evil.

"Bloody hell," I breathed. "They've been planning this for years. What do you think each mark represents? A potential vessel? Look at how they're arranged. It's like they're creating some sort of magical circuit."

"Bloody hell, this is disturbing," Aislinn said as she carefully flipped through one of the notebooks. Her face had gone the color of old porridge. "These absolute nutters are building some sort of magical battery using supernaturals."

"Like hybrids," Violet added grimly. "People with multiple types of power that can be harvested and combined. See these calculations? They're trying to find the perfect combination of energies."

"Well, that's not terrifying at all," I muttered as I examined a diagram that showed how different magical signatures could be ‘harmonized’ through what looked like an extremely unpleasant process.

A floorboard creaked somewhere above us. It was a reminder that we weren't alone in the house. The minions were still out there, searching for whatever had triggered their alarms. We needed to move faster.

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