Page 60 of I Will Always Find You
When partial limbs of the shrieking immortal finally began to materialize, his head thrashing in a frenzy of anguish, jutting from the alchemical mass, the Romani witch turned to necromancy for his next attack.
Knowing that this spell required a physical component, he had taken a piece of bone from the limb of one of the monster’s unfortunate victims earlier before clearing the battle arena with his conjured fire. Prepared, he cut his hand on the broken, jagged edge of the femur and smeared the bone with his blood, thus creating a talisman to channel his will through.
With haste, the Romani witch cast the necromantic spell known as The Leper’s Call.
“Atrophia.” [Atrophy!”] “Interitus.” [“Decay!”] “Mors.” [“Death.”]
The partially solidified limbs of the immortal, trapped in the hardened smoke, began to do exactly what the spell commanded, following the order of the ancient Latin wordsspoken. The immortal writhed in pain, cursing and gnashing his teeth, his sharp fangs slashing his own flesh.
“You dare to wield necromancy against me?!” the immortal bellowed through his agony. “That unnatural sorcery the traitorous Titan Hecate bestowed upon those wretched Secundae, Hades and Circe?!”
That had been the greatest insult the Romani witch could have dealt the god: binding him with the very magic of Olympus, those second-generation gods the once-Titan despised. The blood-drinker had been cursed by The Fates after the destruction of his physical form, punished for his hubris and cast into a limbo-like realm as an apparition.
Yet he occasionally manifested in the material world and was granted powerful pseudo-flesh to pursue his destiny of revenge against the one who had murdered him. He was no longer truly immortal, but the Romani witch remained unaware of this.
The Fates worked in mysterious ways.
Frustratingly held by the Romani witch’s magic, the once-Titan cried out to The Fates for aid, to keep their promise to him that he could enact his revenge against his dark child, Olympius, the upstart god who had slain him thousands of years ago, unencumbered.
However, the enigmatic Weird Sisters remained hauntingly silent.
“Bitch goddesses!” the pseudo-immortal raged. “I do not know you, witch! Why do you do this?!”
“Yes, I do look slightly different,” the Romani witch admitted through clenched teeth. His hatred and fury were palpable. “Look into my eyes, demon, deep into the black pools, and see who I am. See my past!”
Though still in excruciating pain, the blood-drinker managed a brief moment of resolve to gaze into the dark eyes of his tormentor. Inside the ocular abyss, he saw swirls of lightthat became flashes of memory, and he soon recognized his tormentor.
Fighting against the pain, the partially solid apparition, his jaw tight, snickered. “I remember you! The fool witch who thought to stand against me in that nothing town in a nothing part of the world all those centuries ago. To save those doomed mortals. Oh, how deliciously you failed. I see you are also cursed, for how else could you be here now in a different body? Reincarnation never allows memory to travel with the soul into new flesh. My sister Mnemosyne taught me that!”
The fiend returned to shrieking in pain as parts of his solidified limbs continued to rot and fall off the bone, plummeting to the ground in wet, bloody chunks. But then, the wailing transformed into a raucous bellow. That noise was soon followed by several grunts, and the god’s decaying face filled with determination and rage.
“I will—not—be caged—by a mortal!”
And the furious and determined fiend vanished.
“No!” the Romani witch cried out.
But before he could gather his thoughts or give voice to any more of his feelings, he was struck from behind, the blow so intense it sent him hurtling through the air. He crashed against the weathered brick wall of the barbershop across the street. The sound of bricks breaking mingled with the shattering glass of the shop’s window.
If it had not been for his protection spell, the invisible shield around his body, the Romani witch knew he would have been instantly killed by the force of the impact, not just having the breath knocked out of him.
“My will is stronger, witch,” the blood-drinker seethed as he suddenly reappeared a few paces in front of the wrecked shop, solid and showing no signs of necrotic damage. “You will not trap me in that dark magic again.”
As he watched his enemy approach him, laughing mockingly, his feet elevated above the ground, the Romani witch pointed at the floating creature and cried out, “Aer densatur—prohibere movere!”
The air surrounding the god suddenly thickened, holding him in place.
The Romani witch was aware that this spell had not worked well in the past, as it would only hold the blood-drinker for a few moments before he transformed his flesh back into spirit and escaped. But a few moments were all he needed.
Dispelling his protective aura, for its presence would impede the dark magic he planned to use, the Romani witch reached inside his cloak and grabbed the small dagger that was attached to his belt; it was one of two items he carried with him in every lifetime. This one he made sure to keep hidden and safe until his memories returned and he could reclaim it: Aeneas’ dagger.
It was the very talisman a young Aeneas had used to channel his blood magic, the blade the Romani witch first laid eyes on during their encounter with the spawn of the Erymanthian Boar. The dagger was more than a magical tool or a weapon to him; it was his only remaining physical tie to Aeneas, to their original life together. After his abrupt death in Britannia, it had taken him years in his next life to track the dagger down. He enchanted it after that for quick retrieval going forward.
Without wasting a second, the Romani witch cut himself, one slash on both arms and both legs, even his brow. Then, he violently stabbed himself in the chest with the dagger, puncturing through his clothing and plunging the blade into his beating heart to the hilt, though no blood appeared from the wound.
“úš-maš-tab-ba,” [“Blood Twin,”] the Romani witch whispered.
Suddenly, ropes of crimson ichor shot out of the five bleeding gashes on his body as quick as any arrow toward the immobile and solid immortal; like swords, they stabbed and punctured his magical flesh but did not penetrate all the way through. They remained dangling like monstrous marionette strings.
