Page 27 of Whispers of the Magical Forest

"Grab everything that looks important," I said, already stuffing notebooks into my enchanted bag. "And maybe some things that don't. Better safe than sorry."

"Since when are you the voice of reason?" Aislinn asked as she helped gather documents.

"Since we started finding instructions for turning people into magical batteries. Call it personal growth." I smiled at her and then narrowed my eyes. I noticed something odd about the bookshelf behind the desk.

The magical energy flowing through the house seemed to concentrate there. It created a sort of void in the corrupted power. It was like looking at a hole in a sheet. "Hey," I called softly to the others. "Anyone else feel the gap? Because either I'm having a very specific hallucination. Or that bookshelf is doing something weird with the magic."

Violet came over and studied the shelf. "There's a concealment charm here. It feels like it wasplaced here decades ago. And was recently activated. See how the energy flows around it instead of through it?"

"Can you break it?" Aislinn asked as she kept watch at the door.

"Give me a minute," Violet replied. I joined her as she started weaving counter-spells. "It's complex and has multiple layers of protection. They’re tied into the house's wards."

"So that's a yes?" Aislinn clarified.

"That's a 'stand back in case something explodes’," I whispered.

It took us a few minutes to dismantle the magical locks. Each layer we removed revealed another. It was like peeling an onion made of razor wire. Finally, with a sound like a sigh, the shelf swung open to reveal a hidden room. And holy mother of magic. What a room it was.

The walls were covered in photographs and news clippings. They were all connected by strings. These might have been red, but they were glowing brightly with that purple energy. Some of the photos showed familiar faces. At least two were of the victims we'd found in the forest. They had stalked them and identified them as potential targets. There were also several shots of the three of us going about our daily lives. Someone had been watching us for a while. But, why? We lived a few hours away and had never been to Hambledon.

I forced my gaze to move to the artifacts that practically screamed ‘dangerous magical item’. They sat on shelves and hummed with power. I recognized a few from conversations with Artemis. They were things that should have been locked away in Nylah’s secure vault, not sitting on display like trophies. It was the altar in the center that really got my attention. It was a massive stone slab carved with runes that dominated the space.

"This is..." Aislinn's voice trailed off as she took in the scene.

"A shrine to crazy?" I suggested as I got a closer look at the disturbing array of items arranged on the altar's surface. "Because that's what this looks like to me. The kind of crazy that usually ends with someone trying to resurrect ancient evil or dissolve the barriers between realms."

"Both, probably," Violet muttered as she carefully photographed everything with her phone. “Why are they interested in us?”

“No idea,” I replied, but my attention was elsewhere. The ritual tools that were carefully arranged made my magical senses recoil. It was the shifting mass of shadows in the center of them that had my feet shuffling. It sounded like the whispers we heard in the forest.

"Shite," Violet blurted from where she was pawing through personal items like a raccoon at an all-you-can-eat dumpster. She held up what looked like an ID card that couldn't make up its mind about what it wanted to be. Tilt it one way, and you got a respectable businessman with a stick up his ass. Tilt it the other, and you saw something that would make horror movie monsters piss themselves. "Our mystery douche is from the Shadowmere Pack."

"The what now?" I asked. My stomach was already doing the cha-cha of doom. Anything with ‘shadow’ in the name was about as trustworthy as gas station sushi.

"Bloody hell," Aislinn said. "They're one of the oldest packs in Britain. They used to be guardians until their Alpha got cozy with some dark mage about two centuries ago. Now they're like that one cousin everyone pretends isn't in the family photos. He began thinking that summoning demons was a fun weekend hobby."

"An evil werewolf on magical steroids is behind this? What's next? Secret vampire council?Ancient dragon conspiracy? Girl Scouts selling cookies laced with transformation potions?"

"Don't even joke about that last one," Violet warned. "After what the Shadowmere Pack did to the London Conclave, evil Girl Scouts might be an improvement. I can't see how a member of the pack is the leader behind this. He couldn’t perform the ritual. It’s more likely the evil mage."

“We have a bigger problem,” Aislinn said as she waved a list of names in our faces like a red flag in front of a bull.

My hand flew out, and I snatched her arm. Our names were at the bottom. Each one was written in what looked suspiciously like blood. Regular ink wasn't dramatic enough for these people.

"Well," I said, trying to keep my voice light, "I guess we know why we kept stumbling into this mess. We weren't just in the wrong place at the wrong time. We were meant to be here. Someone's been playing chess while we thought we were playing bingo."

"They're targeting us specifically," Aislinn confirmed in a tight voice. "Back to your earlier question, why? What makes us so special?"

"Besides our charming personalities and tendency to blow things up?" I asked as I scanned the rest of the list. Some names were crossed out. My chest squeezed when I realized they had to be victims and were likely already dead. Others had notes beside them, listing magical abilities and potential resonance values.

Something shifted in the magical energy around us. The shadows in the corners began to move, and the temperature dropped so rapidly I could see my breath. The whispers from the cluster grew louder and more insistent.

"It’s a trap!" Violet shouted just as the first wave of shade energy slammed into us.

I threw up a shield because I still hadn't learned thatoptimism gets you killed in this business. The corrupted magic chewed through my defenses faster than my Uncle Dave through an all-you-can-eat buffet. And let me tell you, that man can devour. The house decided this was the perfect moment to have an architectural crisis.

Ancient power surged through the walls like the world's worst electrical problem. Stone cracked and wood splintered. Everything started going full earthquake simulator. The only thing missing was the safety warnings. We added the "holy shit, we're going to die" parts. The ceiling joined the party by projectile vomiting dust and chunks of plaster. Obviously, death by falling debris was on tonight's menu of potential catastrophes.

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