Ritual of the Broken (Haunted Hearts)

Chapter 26

Chapter

Twenty-Six

I sabell stood in front of Ollie, her presence more distinct than all those other times he’d seen her. Her gaze, sharp as a blade, locked with his, a trace of disapproval etched on her delicate features.

“To encourage a demon’s power is to court disaster,” she said with a lift of her chin.

She spoke! Ollie swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry. He thought he’d heard her voice in his vision, but this was as if she spoke in the room. He could actually hear her.

And she was right, of course, but desperation had clouded his judgment. “It was for a good reason, I hope,” he managed, bracing himself for her rebuke.

To his surprise, Isabell’s stern expression softened, and a glimmer of pride flickered in her eyes as she assessed him. “Indeed, Oliver Hartley. It was a bold move from a lineage known for them.” She lifted her arms and regarded herself. “It is the reason I am able to come to you in this way.”

A faint smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, and Ollie gave both Adrian and Mary Ann a glance that said, “I told you so.” But Adrian’s clothes were in disarray, his shirt torn. And Mary Ann, who Ollie expected to have more of an interest in the spirit Isabell now sitting in her living room, only stared at nothing. Perhaps his bold move came with a heavy cost. But Ollie’s attention returned to Isabell when she spoke.

“Alas, we must make haste,” she said with some urgency in her tone. She moved to the small table and sat down, able to move the chair on her own. “The demon’s power was formidable, enough to power my empty soul into coherence, and I was only able to siphon a fraction of it lest I find myself corrupted by its foul essence. My time with you is short.”

“Empty soul?” Ollie said.

“My soul was stolen, dear boy. Sacrificed.” She seemed slightly agitated. “The demon’s power is enough to fill in the void left behind for a time, and it takes considerable effort to cleanse that energy. Again, it will not last for long. Do not make me repeat myself. Come, come. We must cover what needs to be said.”

It struck him how stately she seemed. He wasn’t sure what he expected. He’d seen her so many times, but her presence then was different. Then, she cut an unsettling figure. Now, sitting with her in front of him, it was as if they should have tea and cakes. How was it that she had no soul?

Ollie picked up the journal. “I need to know about the Ritual of the Broken.”

“Yes, the great betrayal,” she said. Isabell turned her eyes downward. They were a dark, stormy blue, almost like his mother’s. “The ritual was called The Aegis of Athanor in the beginning, Athanor to embody the transformative protection envisioned for the Boundary. It never required the souls of the broken. No, the original requirements were sacrifices of the willing. Their souls were not required. Instead, their blood, their power, were to be given freely to empower the ritual.” She waved a hand at the journal. “The miscreation it has become was never meant to be. And it was certainly never meant to weaken the Boundary,” she said, her voice weighed with sorrow. “We began that path with the intention to fortify the Boundary, to reinforce the barriers between realms.”

Preston’s journal never mentioned anything about fortifying the Boundary. It seemed a pretty big error of omission.

“The ritual was perverted, twisted from its original purpose.” She paused, gathering her thoughts. “It was all Preston and Enoch’s doing.”

At the mention of Enoch, Ollie’s brow furrowed. All his life, he’d heard the name Preston Hartley. But then he never knew Isabell’s name until he got his hands on Preston’s journal. “Who is Enoch?” he asked, leaning forward .

“Enoch Roscorla.” A faint smile touched Isabell’s lips, pleasant memories as they passed over her face. “Enoch was my husband,” she revealed, her voice carrying a hint of fondness that didn’t last long.

Ollie blinked, surprised. “I assumed you were married to Preston,” he admitted, a flicker of confusion crossing his features. “He drew a picture of you in his journal. He called you ‘Dear Heart.’”

“Did he, now?” Isabell’s melodic laughter filled the room, but her laugh seemed to lack mirth. More disdain than anything. “No, no,” she chuckled. “Preston was my brother.” Her features darkened. “I suspect he drew me to ease his guilt.”

Guilt? But then he did the math. “Because of the sacrifice.”

“Yes.” Items on an end table in Mary Ann’s living room began to rattle. “It was Preston who led me to the room. It was he who locked the door. And it was assuredly his summons that called the dark thing to extract my soul.”

“So, Preston summoned a dark entity to harvest your soul?”

“Yes. The soul must be prepared for the ritual. Cleansed, but not in the way you and I think of cleansing. No, the Nepheshi, the dark entities, strip away everything unwanted in a soul and leave behind only the emotional resonance required for the ritual.” The shadow over her features made Ollie wonder if she recalled what the Nepheshi had done to her soul. He decided not to ask.

Ollie twisted in his seat. “So, wait. If the Aegis of Athanor was to strengthen the boundary, how did the ritual get corrupted in the first place?”

Isabell leaned back in her chair. This didn’t look like something she enjoyed talking about. “You will have to ask Preston about that. I, clearly, was not a part of their thinking. At the start, I was deeply involved. My input was welcomed, insisted upon, even. But, over time, Preston became more distant. Enoch began suggesting that I involve myself in other tasks related to the ritual rather than the direct planning and experimentation that went into creating it. Then, I discovered they’d been having meetings about the ritual without me. I was cast off and pushed aside.”

Ollie grumbled. “The age-old story, huh? Men shutting out the woman.”

But Isabell shook her head. “I do not believe it was that at all. In our society, the society of mages, women are on equal footing as men. We hold positions of power as often as men. That is why you are a Hartley and not a Penketh as was the name of your father. The Hartley blood is more potent than Penketh blood.”

He’d heard the story from his mother when she talked of his father. “But why were they pushing you out?”

“Clearly, they had other ideas for the ritual. I suspect it may have been their plan all along to create the thing this ritual has become. When I confronted Preston about my exclusion, that is when he brought me to the ritual space,” Isabell paused as if she remembered something. “The night of my sacrifice, I do not think he was himself. I believe he was consumed by this dark goal, this new plan. When I asked him what was going on, he told me Enoch would explain everything, and I took him at his word. I thought perhaps they had made a breakthrough. I trusted him.”

Ollie sat back in his chair. “Too bad Preston’s spirit isn’t available to summon to ask him.”

“There is no need to summon the spirit of one who is not dead,” Isabell said.

For a moment, Ollie thought he hadn’t heard her correctly. “Preston…” He swallowed hard. “Preston is still alive?”

“Yes. I saw him,” Isabell said. “My thoughts were hard to form then. In times when the energy is weak, there is little I can accomplish other than appearing. But I know my own brother when I see him. The sight of him jolted something in me. He was in your establishment thrice days past.”

That couldn’t be right. “He was in my…”

The man. Ollie remembered. The odd man looking for a stone just before he got the first vision.

“He was in my shop,” Ollie said again. He scrubbed his face with his hands and leaned hard against the back of the chair. For a moment, he turned to Adrian and Mary Ann, almost as if for reassurance to make sure he wasn’t going crazy. Adrian was listening by then. Mary Ann still had a worrying stare. But Adrian’s expression was a deep frown. Their eyes met, and he gave Ollie a nod.

It was enough to confirm what Ollie was also thinking: Preston Hartley, the alias Dr. Clarence Montebaum, was the one behind this ritual.

Ollie leaned toward Isabell. “Show me who the next sacrifice is for the ritual, and we can stop it.”

A silence stretched between them, and Ollie wasn’t sure what he expected. Maybe for Isabell to reach out and touch him again to initiate a vision or, perhaps, to work some sort of spell. But she only gave him a look of confusion. “I am uncertain who gave you these visions, but it was not I. What I did do was that when I sensed them coming, I tried to give you time to stop them.”

If not Isabell, then who? Ollie looked down at his hands. He’d learned a lot, but not much of it was as helpful as he hoped. Yes, they had a target. They now knew who was most likely behind this ritual—his own family, Preston Hartley.

“What I can tell you,” Isabell said, “is that the next soul will be taken to the east near water.”

“That narrows it down,” Ollie said with a note of sarcasm. “That means it could be anywhere along the shores of Lake Michigan.”

Isabell leaned forward. She met Ollie’s gaze. “But it is the last sacrifice in this ritual you should be most concerned about, Oliver Hartley,” Isabell said. “The fifth.”

“Who is the fifth sacrifice?” Ollie asked, suddenly more nervous than he was already.

“The fifth sacrifice is a Hartley. Our blood began this ritual, and it must also close it.”

A Hartley. And those were decidedly hard to find. Preston was still alive, but somehow Ollie doubted the man responsible for the ritual was going to give himself up to that same ritual.

That meant the last sacrifice was him.

A sigh came from Isabell. “I’m afraid our time together comes to an end. The power siphoned from the foul demon already grows weak,” Isabell said.

When Ollie looked at her again, she was already growing thinner and more transparent.

“Wait,” Ollie said. “If we’re related, what are you to me?”

Isabell smiled, even as she faded some more. “Why Ollie, I’m your grandmother.”