Part 67 (1/2)

Sandor gave way to the look of epiphany on his brother's face.

”Rayven's after her, right, but is he?” he said. ”Stay with me, here; and make a pot of tea. Go back to what the two gravediggers said at the end, because that's what Rayven has to do. Perhaps if we deconstruct it, we can figure out his master's intentions.”

Sandor put on a pot, and I thought back to the dream; the words may as well have been written in stone, graven on the insides of my eyelids.

”The war is starting. Battle lines will be drawn. She and the vampire are headed towards Prague. Find the other one and kill him. Do not let it survive.” But, so what? I thought.

But Septimus said, ”Don't you see? The Lare you saw, Halsey, in the Stromovka, the grey wolf, if it was interested in you, why hasn't it come back yet? Did it lose its way, or is it after someone else?”

”Hold on... no...” I said.

”Oh yes,” said Septimus.

”You think the Lare, that is the grey wolf, is Rayven's Lare; that somehow it's trying to reconnect with him?” I said.

”Rayven is tethered precariously to this existence; the only thing that can knock him out, is his spirit animal,” said Sandor.

”It would try to protect him,” said Septimus. ”It would try also to save his soul. That's what the gravediggers were doing when they had Rayven and were trying to perform the Last Rites. But he murdered them. We tried to save you, they said. Remember?”

And when Rayven had cornered me for a second time, I thought, in the Stromovka, and said Mine at last, That's what he was afterme. But he had been afraid of the Lare; it showed its fangs to him and would have attacked Rayven, if Rayven hadn't skedaddled. The Grey Wolf was tracking me, because Rayven was tracking me. It all made sense. The Grey Wolf was Rayven's Lare. Do not let it survive.

”Which just goes to show,” said Septimus, ”how unnatural the raising of the dead truly is. Lenoir would want his servant not to have to worry about the Lare or the Last Rites, to keep him tethereduseable.”

Lenoir took the mother lode of Rayven's talents, his abilities. So Laurinaitis said. Did Lenoir want Rayven's soul now, as well?

”You're forgetting the Rede,” said Sandor. ”The Wiccan Rede to Do No Harm. Rayven had his chance, Halsey. He made his choices. If he has a soul, perhaps it can be saved, but that isn't what you should be worried about.”

”No,” said Septimus.

”We have to stop him,” said Sandor.

”What about the Last Rites?” I said.

”To destroy Rayven, we must first find the grey wolf. Either that, or kill Rayven's master, and I don't think you want to go up against him just yet.”

”No.” I shook my headbut that would mean leaving Rome, leaving everything; starting over, in a way. To find the grey wolf, would Rayven have to be near me? I asked.

Sandor nodded. ”And therein lies our great advantage,” he said. ”After all, Rayven wants you dead.”

I felt like I had taken a wrong turning, only to find myself, mysteriously, back at the beginning. Rayven... His Lare... the Last Rites...

Somehow I needed to find out everything I could about necromancy, even if that meant going against the Rede I could take Rayven's soul, thus destroying him beyond the reach of his master; only, the Wiccan Rede kept stopping me... There was no way around it. I was going to have to address the Wiccan Rede.

Rayven's a demon. So if he was brought Back, I thought... The gravediggers were trying to save Rayven. That's what they were doing when he murdered them; so, if I murder Rayven...

Am I helping him? Maybe by reuniting Rayven with his soul, I can kill him. But his soul is in Limbo... or nothat's his spirit animal...

How do I murder somebody without dooming myself elevenfold? And what about this flesh offering? I thought. I couldn't exactly raise the dead without doing some serious Dark Magic. It must take huge amounts of magical energy to raise the deadenergy I don't have... unless

Chapter 17 Epilogue The Dark Path.

I flipped through the Everything book, back in my room, thinking about the Dark Path.

Nota bene: Magic drains YOU, if you let it.

If I was going to stop the Dark Order from rising, first off, I couldn't do it today; I wasn't ready yet; I hadn't learned enough. If I summoned Rayven now, he'd probably just end up killing me.

The S Bros told me about the Dark Path, but that didn't give me any clues how to walk it, or if I should. What I needed was a guide...

I booted up my laptop, typing my request into the search engine. It was still counting back from IX, the Roman-numeral web site.

When I had thought the grey wolf was Risky, I thought he was protecting me But if he was Rayven's Lare... It created a whole new sort of problem for me.

I opened a second window, doing a quick search for Lares There were different types. The Lar Familiaris was a family spiritA Guardian. What had Mistress Genevieve said? ”Your Mother and Fatherrest their soulselected me your Guardian.”

I reread the letter.

I already had a Lare. A guardian, in a way. Mistress Genevieve. I had been in Rome, now, thirteen months, time enough to figure out certain answers were not necessarily here.

Let's look at what you know, Halsey. Parents murderedraised overseas You're eighteen According to Mistress Genevieve, that is the year, apparently, We Come Into our Powers... (”Magnetism pulls us back to the beginning. You to yours is a powerful tug.”) What if she's right? If so, Rome would be my beginning... St. Martley's my middle, and now... Was this the end?

A psychopath and his henchman were after me... Until I knew why, I'd be stuck in shadows, locked in a mystery.