Dark Illumination Read online

  “Sonnellion.” My brother repeated the name like he had just tasted a bitter apple.

  “This Witch is as strong as I am. I have no clue who they are. I have no clue how they got to be that strong. I just know that I can’t battle them alone. I am going to need another Witch, another Witch with magic near my own in power. And a Witch that I can power-share with and not worry about consequences. That leaves mom, Magnus, Daniel, Nicholas, you and the rest of our siblings, but I trust you the most with this situation.”

  “You are hoping that they can’t curse both of us at the same time, in other words.”

  “That’s about the size of it. If they can’t, we can break each other’s curses and whatever magic is involved. I know you don’t power share or store as easily as I do, but you are quite capable in that area, more so perhaps than even Magnus. I can easily pull his, but he has a harder time using mine. You and I don’t have those limitations. I don’t know if it is a bloodline thing or a sibling thing, but I would actually feel better if it were you.”

  “Stop feeding my ego.”

  “I’m not, Eli. I am being honest. When it comes to sharing my magic, I am very particular and if a Witch has problems collecting it from me….”

  “It can become a double-edged sword.”

  “Right.”

  “Send Ba’al. He’s the best at carrying extras. I’ll be ready when he gets here. I’m at work, have him come here.”

  “Thank you, Eli. I owe you.”

  “No, you’ll owe Hannah. She’s the one who is pregnant and won’t be happy about me running off to help you. Who will fetch her ice cream and hot dogs in the middle of the night?”

  “Hopefully, it won’t take that long.” I hung up.

  Chapter Seven

  “How can anybody use Sonnellion’s magic, he’s dead.” Levi asked.

  “Ba’al, go get Eli please, we are going to need him.” I ignored my uncle.

  “Of course,” Ba’al left the room with barely a sound.

  “Niece?”

  “It is complicated, unbelievable so. I will try to explain. Magic is just energy. Each with its own unique signature. Even the dead have energy, for beings with souls; it is contained inside the soul. The body dies, but the soul lives on. If you are strong enough, have enough magic, you can conjure the dead. If you can conjure the dead, you can use their magic. They bring it with them; it is still attached to their souls. In the case of Sonnellion, Lucifer carries a bit of it with him, he killed Sonnellion and as Overlord, there seems to be some power gathering as a result. However, if I were to conjure Sonnellion, since I am a Witch and Witches can share magic, and I can share magic with Elders, I can share Sonnellion’s magic. There is a downside.”

  “There always is,” Anubis muttered.

  “In this case, Sonnellion, despite being dead, is still very strong. His magic is still very powerful. He can’t exactly use it, but it hangs around him like a cloud. If I share magic, I truly share magic. I can use his, but he gets a touch of mine, at least temporarily. This raises a much more frightening question…”

  “If you share enough power with Sonnellion, is it possible he could resurrect himself?” Levi asked.

  “Exactly. I don’t believe it would work that way, but just because I don’t believe in it, doesn’t mean I’m right. Since he is dead, he is technically unable to use magic. However, he is not dead like any other dead soul I’ve ever met, so I’m not sure the rules fully apply to him.” I thought for several minutes. The others also seemed lost in thought too. No one spoke.

  “You talk and I hear Charlie Brown’s teacher,” Levi finally answered.

  “Great, I don’t know how to explain it better. Sonnellion isn’t like other dead people who get conjured. They don’t have a corporeal form. They exist, but they exist inside other things, like my dresser or a couch or a book. I could conjure up any of my dead ancestors and talk to them, but they wouldn’t have bodies. Sonnellion has a body when he gets conjured. It could be real or it could be the power of the imagination or it could be something else entirely that I don’t understand. I just know that when I conjured him, he had a body. He walked. He moved. He had magic flowing in and out of him. Those are things associated with the living, not the dead. The dead have magic, but they don’t have bodies. Sonnellion is different than everything I’ve ever seen.”

  “But you’re young,” Levi offered.

  “I am, but I know a corporeal body when I see one.” Something nagged at the back of my mind. I closed my eyes to find the thought.

  “But…”

  “Shhhh,” I held up a hand and stopped them all from talking. It was there, the thought that had been forming all this time. I had it.

  “Power sharing might be why Sonnellion has a body,” I said it before it could escape again.

  “What does that mean?” Levi was definitely frowning now.

  “If I share power with the living, it makes them stronger for a time. For centuries, little Witch children have been conjuring Sonnellion. The Hanged Man is our version of the boogey man. To conjure him requires at least some power sharing and we all know the Brothers are different. What if Sonnellion can power share as well?”

  “Brenna, no one in this room understands power sharing except you,” Anubis told me.

  I took a deep breath to keep from yelling. It was frustrating trying to get new ideas across to beings older than dirt only to have them tell you they still don’t understand. I felt like I was beating my head against a wall.

  “Ok, you have magic,” I pointed to the nearest figure. “I have magic. To power share means I take a little magic from you, regardless of what it is and use it. However, if I’m taking, I must also give a little. So you get a power boost as well. For a short time, you have a bit of my magic. This might make you better at whatever you do or it might be completely worthless to you. Only, with my being a Witch, I have a reservoir so to speak. It’s a place to hold other beings’ magic. It should be empty most of the time. Mine isn’t, but it should be. When I power share, I fill that reservoir with your magic. I cast whatever I need to cast, using that magic, plus my own and the spell becomes more powerful or I have the magic to cast a spell that would normally be too powerful for me to cast. As a rule, Elders can’t power share and Witches can always power share.”

  “You say not you.”

  “I’m a bit different. I finally figured it out and figured out exactly why I’m a bit different. I thought at first it was just me, then I realized my mother is constantly leeching magic from my father. So, the last time my siblings were around, I watched. They all leech magic from their partners. They don’t even know they are doing it. I did, but only because I have four Overlords that I am constantly leeching from. So every morning, I feel the sunrise. However, that isn’t the important part. The important part is that they don’t have to give magic back hence the word leech. None of us do. I think it is Strachan magic and I think it is one of the spells written into my bloodline mark. Since we don’t have to give back, we can leech Elder magic.”

  “You’re speaking gibberish again.” Levi scolded me. “All Witches can use Elder magic.”

  “Ah, yes, all Witches can power share with an Elder, but they can’t really use it. They have it and whatever ‘it’ is, is what it stays. So a Witch shares with a Demon and the Witch gets a good healing spell, but not much else. But Strachans can leech it and when they do, it becomes their magic, no longer Elder magic. For a Witch and an Elder to power share, they must both agree to it. They must be volunteers. The Witch takes magic from the Elder, weakening the Elder. So when the Witch has finished with the Elder magic, they must give some back, usually a mix of Witch and left over Elder magic to get the Elder back on its feet. If I power share with Anubis, for a while I will see souls and he will probably be able to heal beings. But what I do, every day, is not power sharing. Every being has energy they don’t use. I collect those little bits and store them up for later. That is what makes me a powerful
Witch. My siblings and mother do it as well. But we can’t leech from each other, which is why I think it is a bloodline thing.”

  “So right now, even though I can’t see or feel it, you are gathering bits of my magic?” Levi asked.

  “Yes.” I told him. “But only tiny amounts. When the reservoir gets full, I have to cast some spells with the magic I have stored up.”

  “How much magic can you store?”

  “I don’t know, the reservoir has never gotten full.”

  Chapter Eight

  “That is the disturbing part,” Eli’s voice suddenly joined the conversation. “I didn’t believe it either, at first. Then I started watching for it. She’s right, we all do it. Sex is the best time for us to leech, but just sitting in this room, I am acutely aware of all the magic. I am leeching it too. However, my reservoir takes only a fraction to fill. Five, six hours with all of you here, I’ll be full. Five or six years and Brenna’s may still only be half-full.”

  “Eli,” I nodded towards his voice.

  “They’re right, you look terrible.”

  “Love you too.”

  “If Brenna has all this magic, why can’t she break the spells and curse on herself?”

  “Because we are leeches,” Eli’s weight hit the bed frame. “If a normal Witch got hit by a spell or a curse, they could form a spell and break it. If we get hit by a spell or a curse, we can’t. We have to call someone in. Because the magic that hit us, becomes part of our reservoir and we can’t put magic into our own reservoir. We can only take it out.”

  “Like everything else, being a leech has a downside,” it was Anubis’s turn to smirk. His voice was positively radiant with it.

  “Exactly,” Eli and I answered in unison, making me smile.

  “So, what do you think, Eli? Can you fix me?” I stopped lecturing and got down to business.

  “I don’t know. This is dark magic, Bren. I could use Levi and the Overlords to help, but if we were attacked afterwards…”

  “They may not be strong enough to defend us.” I finished his thought.

  “Yeah, I have some reserve magic, but honestly, I don’t know if it is enough. Bren, how did they use Sonnellion’s magic? He never willingly shares.”

  “Oh, I have a theory on that. One that might require a call to mom, but only after I’ve healed.”

  “What is your theory?” Levi asked.

  “The Strachans leech magic. If it is in the bloodline mark, either the Witch is a Strachan or they have Strachan skin in their possession. Since my mother keeps that book from hell…”

  “You think someone could have stolen a bloodline mark from the Strachan Book?” Eli asked.

  “Yeah, it seems more plausible than them being a Strachan. Our sister is locked away and nutty. None of the other siblings would do this. We don’t have any other family, unless we don’t know about them. That leaves the Strachan Book of Marks.”

  “Huh? What?” Levi asked.

  “When a Witch with a bloodline mark dies, you cut out the mark. The mark goes into a book for safe keeping. The marks themselves are magic. No different than your Elder marks.” Eli answered off-handedly. I could feel him very close to me.

  “That is why the Overlords remove Elder marks, it is how we execute,” Anubis was very flat. “Only the Overlords have the power to remove them though. It is done by magic. However, once removed, the Elder is powerless.”

  “See, your marks are removed by magic, the Overlords carry them after the death of an Elder. That is why Lucifer has a bit of Sonnellion’s magic all the time.” Eli told Levi.

  “But a Witch’s mark is physically removed from the corpse. To keep it safe. We can’t magic them away.” I finished.

  “Could it be your sister?” Levi asked.

  “Unlikely, she is locked away. We didn’t remove her mark because she was still alive, but she’d need to physically be here. The marks bind us. If she was here, we’d know about it.” Eli took a deep breath. “Hold on, Bren.”

  There was nothing. I felt no change at all. I tried to raise an eyebrow, realized it probably made me look even worse and stopped.

  It slammed into me a moment later. So much power, I gagged. It hadn’t been this bad when Magnus had hit me with it. Vertigo overcame me. The world swam, tilted on its axis and fell to the floor. I went with it.

  Breathing hard, vomiting magic, I found myself face first in the carpet. But I could see the carpet. That was a significant improvement. I threw up again, watched the magic colors dance and twirl as they hit the carpet and rushed out.

  My body felt like it was being torn apart by the magic that filled me. Everything hurt, more pain than I had ever experienced in my life. And that bar was slowly getting set higher and higher.

  The spell accepted no magic, but the curse, did. I felt it swell within my brain, swell within my eye sockets. There was a moment when I thought I would just have two gaping holes again, but then the remnants of the curse exploded.

  More magic shot through me. More pain accompanied it. I reached a point where even I wasn’t sure I could tolerate any more magic. My own was beginning to flare, to retaliate, to save me from the magic being shoved into me.

  It stopped.

  A minute passed, then two. The world was lost except for the dancing colors and the shabby carpet. There was no sounds, no smells, nothing. Gently, I pushed up on my hands, found my arms too weak and fell back to the floor.

  “Slowly,” Eli was saying. I turned my head and found myself face to face with him.

  “That was a rush,” he gave me a smile. His eyelids were black and crispy looking.

  “Did you Demon heal as well?” I asked with a voice I wasn’t sure anyone could hear.

  “Didn’t mean to, just happened.” He answered.

  “Do you feel as terrible as I do?” I whispered again.

  “Oh yeah,” he took my hand, smiled, and closed his eyes. I did the same.

  Chapter Nine

  I dreamed of Death. I often had as a child. Not real death, but my own personification of it. The fact that it was my uncle, Sonnellion, did not break a lifetime of calling him Death. It seemed to somehow reinforce that notion.

  I dreamed of Death. But not as I usually dreamed of him. Normally, he looked Human. Light colored skin with dark body hair speckled over his chest, a tangled, matted mess over his pubic region. His body was tall, but gaunt, with the impression of muscle under the pale skin. His face covered by the hood that hid his face and the terror it had become.

  No, for the first time, Sonnellion looked like a Demon. He had no body hair. His skin was no longer pale, but a deep green, almost black color. His muscles were well defined. And the hood that hid his face, noticeable hid horns as well.

  He was still nude. It would have said something about me to be dreaming of my uncle nude, except, dreaming of my uncle, meant that he was here. This is what he always came attired in. He wasn’t a dream figment, he was in my dream. I had no control over him.

  I sat on the ground, my back against a giant oak tree, the likes of which I had never seen. It was easily six foot in diameter at the base. The leaves overhead rustled and rattled with a slight breeze. The grass under me was green, lush and in need of a good mow before it become unruly.

  There was a river near me somewhere. I could hear the gentle lapping of the water as it hit the shore line. Since it was only partially my dream, I didn’t know what color the water was.

  I turned and looked up at Sonnellion. He stood ten feet from me. His body turned so that the hooded face was staring back at me.

  We sat in silence for a long time. I had no questions for him and if he could speak, he had nothing to say to me. But I knew he was there for a reason and I needed to know why, so I waited patiently.

  Eventually, his hand came up. It took hold of the cloth that hid his face and pulled. The pulling seemed to be in slow motion. It took ages for his face to be revealed.

  It was not what I expected. I had seen what was
beneath the shroud before. A maggot-infested skull with no flesh and no features had been the thing of terror that walked into my parents’ kitchen a couple of months ago.

  Not now, now the face had skin, Sonnellion had features. The shape of his eyes mirrored my own, long elliptical pupils of a slightly lighter color than the green that colored the irises and matched his skin tone. It was the first time I had seen those eyes in another Demon. My skin felt clammy at the thought.

  His lips were full, but unlike the Brothers’ they weren’t smiling. They looked like they had been chewed on. His nose and ears were a dead-ringer for those of Lucifer and Beezel, being slightly larger than the others. His horns were impressive, but not as tall as Levi’s, maybe only five foot.

  “Uncle,” I finally said as he yawned, stretching his mouth wide. A mouth that hadn’t seen teeth or sinew or tissue in eons.

  “Niece,” Sonnellion answered, his voice lighter and higher than most of the Brothers’.

  “Why are you here?”

  “I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me.”

  “I brought you into this dream?”

  “Yes, you must want something.”

  I thought for a long time. Did I want something? Yes, I wanted to track down the Witch that was using Sonnellion’s magic.

  “Niece?” Sonnellion asked after I had been quiet for a while.

  “Why did you hurt Gabriel?”

  “Your father’s pets?” Sonnellion gave a twisted smile. “Because they are not as strong as us. Because I could.”

  “That is the answer I expected,” I sighed.

  “Why am I here?” Sonnellion asked again.

  “It does not matter now. Your soul is still twisted with hate and rage. Does it hurt?”

  “Unbelievably so. But it is my burden to carry.”