Ritual of the Broken (Haunted Hearts)

Chapter 31

Chapter

Thirty-One

A drian followed Preston Hartley out of the cell, his senses on high alert. The hallway stretched before them, long and featureless, save for numbers marked at intervals on the walls. The scent of magic hung thick in the air, unmistakable to Adrian’s heightened werewolf senses.

They were in another part of the Synod Aetherium Forums, deep underground most likely.

Adrian moved with caution, every muscle tense as he listened for any sign of approaching footsteps or voices. In contrast, Preston strode forward with an air of nonchalance, making no effort to conceal their presence.

Suddenly, Adrian’s ears pricked up. “Someone’s coming,” he whispered urgently.

“Stay close,” Preston said simply, continuing his unhurried pace.

Footsteps grew louder, and Adrian’s heart pounded. A man rounded the corner ahead, walking directly toward them. He braced himself for a confrontation, but the man approached without slowing.

As the stranger drew near, Adrian held his breath. But the man walked right past them, not even glancing in their direction, as if they were invisible.

Adrian straightened. Another powerful cloaking spell, this one from Preston. He was an archmage, if what Ollie said was true. He still hated magic, but it could be convenient at times.

Eventually, they emerged into the central atrium of the Forums, and Preston led them to an exit. This time, they didn’t come out in the fast food shop Magnificent Munch. Instead, they emerged into an alleyway. The crisp morning air of Chicago along with all its familiar scents, the good and the bad, the piss and rotten food and rats, smelled to Adrian like freedom.

He wished he had his phone so he could call in. There was probably a BOLO out on him by now. But his phone was lost. So was his wallet. Best he could hope for was they would run into a patrol on the way to wherever they were headed. He doubted Preston was going to let him stop and find a phone.

The man he walked next to rescued him, but Adrian still didn’t trust him. If this man—this mage—was really trying to stop this ritual, where was he all this time? Why wasn’t he at the crime scene, stopping the creatures from sucking out the souls of hapless victims? No, there was something else Preston Hartley wanted. But for now, he was the only connection to finding Ollie, so Adrian didn’t have much of a choice.

They cut into a parking lot between two high-rise buildings and emerged onto a sidewalk lined with trees and parked cars. A sporadic stream of vehicles moved northbound. A street sign put him on Jefferson, and the rumble of an L train not far away said they were probably near Lake Street. Preston turned onto the sidewalk toward the train stop.

“Where are we going?” Adrian asked.

Preston moved fast on the street, brushing past people who seemed to barely notice him. He finally stopped at a parked car next to a meter marked Out of Order. “We have to make a stop first.”

“Okay. Where?”

“I’ll fill you in soon. For now, we need to get to a place where we can speak freely.” Preston got into the car, and Adrian slid into the passenger seat.

Twenty minutes later, Preston guided his car into a spot in the University of Chicago’s on-campus parking lot. Adrian stepped out, his senses still on high alert. He’d tried to pry information from Preston during the drive, but the older man had remained tight-lipped, offering only cryptic responses and no real answers.

As they walked across the sprawling campus, a young woman with a backpack slung over her shoulder walked toward them on the sidewalk. “Hi, Professor Montebaum,” she called out cheerfully.

Preston’s demeanor shifted instantly, a warm smile on his face. “Hello, Sarah. How are you?”

“Great!” She lifted the backpack as if to show him. “Working on my paper, as a matter of fact.”

“Excellent! You’re probably well ahead of your peers. Well, get it done and don’t forget to do a thorough literature review.”

“That’s the plan!” Then Sarah continued on her way.

Adrian waited until the student was out of earshot before turning to Preston. “You’re a college professor?”

“I’m a lot of things,” Preston replied, his voice carrying a hint of amusement. “A college professor is the one I am in the current decade.”

They approached a massive brick building with “Ryerson Physical Laboratory” etched above its entrance. Adrian’s brow furrowed. “You teach science?”

Preston chuckled. “Physics. The sciences are a natural fit for one such as I.”

Inside, they climbed two flights of stairs and turned down a long hallway. The corridor stretched before them, its walls lined with corkboards covered in ads for academic tutoring, job opportunities, and event flyers. The linoleum floor squeaked beneath their feet, and the smell of dry-erase markers and old books hung in the air, along with the muddled scents of different chemicals Adrian couldn’t put a name to.

Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a harsh glow on framed portraits of stern-looking scientists. Display cases filled with intricate scientific instruments that looked like props from a science-fiction film dotted the hallway at regular intervals.

Preston halted abruptly in front of a nondescript door that seemed to reveal itself only when Adrian stood directly in front of it and not until Preston actually touched it. It looked more like a broom closet than anything else. He produced a key, unlocked it, and ushered Adrian inside.

As Adrian stepped through the doorway, his nostrils flared at the pungent odor of magic. His keen eyes caught sight of intricate markings etched into the doorjamb, sigils he’d come to recognize from his recent encounters with the magical world.

The room beyond was not the cramped closet he’d expected, but a surprisingly spacious laboratory. Lab tables lined the walls, their surfaces cluttered with an array of scientific equipment and mystical objects. Sinks dotted the perimeter, and an old chalkboard dominated one wall, its surface covered in dense, scrawling handwriting all in the same hand Adrian had glimpsed in the journal.

What set this space apart from a typical college lab were the shelves lined with ancient tomes, reminiscent of those Adrian had seen in the Synod Archives. Scattered among the scientific instruments were components he’d come to associate with spellcraft—herbs, crystals, and curious artifacts .

A glass case on one of the tables caught Adrian’s eye. Inside was a stone of deep, inky black that caught the light in a way that made it seem to reflect constellations. This wasn’t just a laboratory, but a mage’s workshop. Preston’s workshop.

“They let you keep a laboratory in a campus building for all this stuff?” Adrian asked, his tone a mix of disbelief and suspicion.

Preston gave a cursory glance around the room and shrugged. “The university doesn’t know about it,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’ve had this room since 1983, and it’s been warded ever since.”

Adrian turned to face Preston. “So, you just happened to be in Chicago, in the very city where someone is trying to complete a ritual that you created.” The skepticism was thick in his tone, but he didn’t care.

“Of course not,” Preston said. “It was always going to take place here. The Hidden Hand has been planning this since even before we penned the first words related to The Aegis of Athanor.”

Adrian’s brow furrowed. “The who? The what?”

“One question at a time,” Preston said with a bemused grin.

“Okay, then what the hell is the Aegis of Athalon or whatever?”

“Athanor. That was the original name of the ritual. As I’m sure you’ve been made aware, opening the pathways was never our intent. We wanted to strengthen the Boundary, and Isabell and I were persuaded that, in order to do so, we had to resituate the locks, so to speak. We were misled.”

“By Enoch Roscorla,” Adrian said.

The name seemed to catch Preston by surprise. “You have done some homework, Detective Keller.”

“I listened…” At least he listened as much as he could when he wasn’t fighting to keep himself from clawing up Mary Ann’s apartment and possibly everyone in it. “After Ollie summoned a demon to give Isabell’s ghost the strength to have a conversation.”

Preston paused. “Summoned a demon, did he?” A small smile spread across Preston’s lips, like that revelation made him proud somehow. “I always knew he had it in him.”

“More like kept it contained,” Adrian said.

“And how did he accomplish that?”

“With some salt. I think.” Adrian was starting to get frustrated. He wanted answers, and this wasn’t the direction he wanted to go.

“Is that all?”

“Yes. Maybe? I don’t know. I’m not a mage.”

“A demon could not be contained by mere salt.” The grin on Preston’s face was annoying to Adrian. “I have three hundred and fifteen years of magical refinement, and not even I would attempt to harness a demon’s power with simple salt.”

That caused Adrian to pause. During the encounter with the demon, all Adrian saw was the salt. There was nothing else between them and the demon. Somehow, Ollie managed to keep it contained… At least to some degree… But this was not important right now.

Adrian crossed his arms. “What are we doing here, Hartley? Shouldn’t we be getting weapons or whatever we came here for and going to rescue Ollie?”

Preston waved a hand. He walked across his laboratory toward a large free-standing cabinet. “In due time, Detective Keller. I have something to show you first.”

Preston turned to the cabinet, its ornate wooden doors creaking as he pulled them open.

The cabinet’s interior was a chaotic array of shelves, drawers, and compartments. Leather-bound tomes jostled for space with glass vials containing mysterious liquids. Crystals of various hues and sizes glinted in the dim light, while bundles of dried herbs hung from small hooks.

Preston’s fingers danced over the contents, pulling open drawers and shifting items aside. Adrian watched, his heightened senses picking up on the subtle changes in Preston’s heartbeat and breathing as he searched.

Finally, Preston withdrew an ornate box about the width of a sheet of paper. The box itself seemed to pulse with an energy that made even Adrian’s skin prickle.

Cradling the box, Preston turned and walked back to Adrian. He set it on the table between them, his eyes never leaving the intricate designs etched into its surface.

“I wanted to give this to you first,” Preston said, his voice carrying that lilt that Adrian was quickly growing tired of.

Preston opened the ornate box. Inside lay a circular metal frame, its surface etched with intricate markings. The metal gleamed, but it wasn’t gold. It was something Adrian couldn’t quite place.

As he studied the object, a jolt of recognition shot through him. His pulse quickened, and he felt a sudden dryness in his throat. The frame’s center was empty, but Adrian knew exactly what belonged there. His mind raced back to that fateful night in Afghanistan, the night he broke free from Colonel Langford’s control. In his hands had been a disk, covered in similar markings, a perfect fit for this frame.

A frame made up of all the pieces he’d gathered—stolen—while under Langford’s control.

“What is it?” Adrian asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Preston moved closer, his shoulder nearly touching Adrian’s. “It’s a cipher wheel,” he explained, his finger tracing the empty space in the center. “Useless without the disk that belongs in the middle. This particular one is said to contain the ability to speak with gods—but only if one possesses the center disk.”

Adrian opened his mouth to speak, to reveal that he had the missing piece, but Preston raised a hand to stop him.

“I can keep a great many eavesdroppers and spies from my personal sanctum,” Preston continued, his voice low and measured, “but there are those that even I cannot keep out who would very much like to possess this particular item... and its matching component. ”

Adrian stared at Preston, confusion and suspicion warring in his mind. “What are you giving me this for?” he asked, matching Preston’s hushed tone.

A smile played at the corners of Preston’s mouth. “Because one day, I suspect you will have a need for it,” he replied. Preston quickly turned back to the cabinet and closed it up. “But for now, you can leave it here to retrieve later. Let me just gather a few things, then we can begin our plans to rescue Oliver.”

“You know where he’s being held?” Adrian asked.

“Of course. He’s in the Tribune Tower. On the upper floors, no doubt.”

Adrian was confused. “Why there?”

“The Tribune Tower was built by mages for one particular purpose,” Preston said.

Adrian’s shoulders slumped. “Let me guess. This ritual.”

“Now you’re catching on,” Preston said with a smile.

“So, the Synod has been planning this for a long time.”

“Not the Synod, in particular. The Synod has been nothing more than a magical bureaucracy for nearly a millennium.” Preston continued to move around the laboratory, gathering items that looked like nothing to Adrian, but that carried the scent of magic. “The Hidden Hand, however, has been operating in the shadows of the Synod since practically the beginning, and they have become quite adept at keeping their actions hidden. They conspired to have the Tower built. I didn’t even know about them until they tried to have me killed. ”

“After you helped create the ritual.”

“Precisely.” Preston stopped and pointed a finger in the air to make a point. “The Aegis of Athanor, that is. Not the monstrosity this has become today.”

Adrian let out a sigh, which bordered on frustration. “Why create something like this in the first place?”

Preston stopped and faced Adrian. “Because that was our lot in life. It fell to us—to me—to guard the Boundary. The Hartley bloodline, since even before the time our family was known as Heorotleah, since before our bloodline was carried down by the Son of ?thelstan, the Son of Eadric, and on. One of our bloodline is intertwined with ancient protective spells, our very lineage carrying the unique magical resonance needed to initiate and stabilize the Boundary. The Aegis of Athanor was my attempt as the one chosen as maintainer to strengthen the Boundary once again. That is why our blood—the Hartley soul—was needed to charge the ritual. And to bring it to a close.”

“So you killed your own sister to charge it.”

An expression of surprise and shock crossed Preston’s face. “No. Dear gods, no.” Preston moved to a table and put his hands on it as if to steady himself. “That was Enoch. We were both betrayed by him. Not even my sister knew my true purpose as a maintainer of the Boundary. She was brought in to help create this ritual, given enough information to bring her formidable talent to the cause. And once the charging of the ritual commenced, he used my blood to change the very nature of the ritual to turn it into what it is today. ”

Preston paused and met Adrian’s gaze. “My blood was used much in the same way as yours. As I told you before, by a man whose power I couldn’t even fathom at the time. It takes a lot to control another, but, as you know all too well, when one possesses your blood, it is possible to make someone, man, woman, wolf, mage, and beyond, do as one wishes.”

Adrian clenched his back teeth until his jaw ached. “Sanguimancy.”

Preston nodded. “By then, I was powerless to stop it. To stop him.” Preston bowed his head. “I was foolish, so naive. We both were, Isabell and I. Enoch was ancient even then, and I was in awe of his power. I let him guide me in the creation of the sigils. His goal all along was to gain my blood—and to use the connection of the Hartley bloodline to the Boundary to weaken the very thing my family has been tasked with protecting since the beginning.”

There was another question bugging Adrian, and it was a big one. “Okay, so why now? Why didn’t this Enoch just do the ritual right after it was created?”

“He couldn’t,” Preston said. “This ritual opens the pathways to one specific deep realm. If he simply threw open the doorways, there is no telling what would have come through. It would have likely been uncontrollable. No, Enoch had to make preparations before opening the door. He had to negotiate with the right entity, the one he calls?—”

“The Vanguard,” Adrian said .

But Preston shook his head. “Something much worse. From my research, she is described as unknowable, the yawning abyss at the heart of creation, a force that renders meaning and morality obsolete. Enoch believes the gods have gotten it wrong. He wants to remake reality, and to do that, first he needs to erase what is already here. He must bring what will unmake what is already made. He had to use my research to communicate across the void, and I knew it would take him some time to reach the point where he could move forward with the ritual.”

“So, now.”

“Precisely now.”

“And that gave you time to prepare yourself. What have you been doing all this time?”

Preston swallowed hard. He paced toward a window to look out, then he turned back to Adrian.

“You are a homicide detective, Detective Keller. You know the lengths a mortal will go to accomplish their goal, even when that includes murder.” Preston let out a shaky breath. “The weight of my soul is burdened by my actions, and count this as my confession. The ritual required the soul of a Hartley, and I had to do what was necessary, even against my own blood, in order to stop Enoch Roscorla from carrying out the ritual to open the Boundary.”

Adrian remained rooted to the spot. What Preston said bore down on him. It didn’t take much for him to put it all together. He was trained to think this way, after all. “Ollie’s family. He said they all died under suspicious circumstances. He believed it was the Synod who had them killed… but it was you.”

After a long, pregnant moment, Preston finally nodded. “I did what I had to.” He swallowed again. “But I was foolish even then. After all the time I’ve lived and after everything I’ve been through, I still didn’t see the full picture.”

“How many did you kill?” Adrian’s voice sounded small even to him.

Preston didn’t look up. “The blood on my hands is too thick to even judge anymore.”

“You just confessed to murder to a homicide detective.”

Finally, Preston did look at Adrian. “I did. But I have to believe that those I had a hand in killing understood the reason why after they moved on to the next realm.”

Adrian looked away with a shrug. “Well, Isabell doesn’t understand. She all but told us you had to be stopped.”

Preston nodded in a resigned way. “Enoch had me lead her to her death. Of course she still believes it was me who doomed her soul. I have taken many lives, but I never would have harmed a one if Enoch hadn’t forced me to lure Isabell to her end.”

“And now Ollie’s the last one.” Adrian stared at Preston. He had lots of questions, but this one was the most obvious. “So, why not just kill him to stop the ritual once and for all? No one knew you were alive. You could have killed him then disappeared for good.” Adrian only hoped he wasn’t giving Preston ideas. But he suspected Preston was three steps ahead in this case. If Adrian thought of it, no doubt, Preston already had too.

“Yes. I could have. And that thought did cross my mind. But Ollie’s mother, my niece, was a remarkable woman. It was her last quest in this realm to seek me out.” Preston shook his head and mused to himself like he was still surprised by that fact. “All this time, I’d kept hidden, and she drew on the pull of our blood to rouse me from my hiding place. She knew I was alive because she had something I did not—she possessed the strength of the bloodline.”

Adrian crossed his arms. He had no idea what that meant, so he figured the best thing to do was stand and listen.

“I was tasked as the Guardian of the Boundary. That was my duty. I believed I was doing it by removing Enoch’s ability to use another Hartley to complete the ritual. But, unbeknownst to me, our lineage possesses a stop-gap measure. You see, there is a story in one of our early grimoires of a Guardian trying to consolidate the power and make it his own. I only sought it out and translated it when Rowan told me what she learned. Originally, the power of our line of descent worked in concert with the Guardian. The Guardian could pull strength from the bloodline to fortify the boundary. But one Guardian sought to use the Boundary instead of protecting it. He wanted to travel freely among the realms to gain their knowledge and power for himself .

“My early ancestors fought against him. They worked to prevent him from misusing the Hartley power. Using blood magic of their own, they fundamentally changed our bloodline by severing the connection to the Guardian, and they created a check to the Guardian’s power by ensuring Hartley power was transferred to everyone else of the blood. This was not knowledge passed down to the Guardians but only shared with the steward of the family line, the one responsible for overseeing our duties to the family and to the Boundary. My father was the steward, and I became the Guardian. But I was controlled by Enoch, and he used me to kill my father before his knowledge could be given to the next steward. Then he used my connection to the Boundary to search for a way to weaken it.

“But Rowan figured it out. She used my own research to reach between the realms to speak to my father. He told her the truth. And unwittingly, I had given Rowan the power of those who came before her, and those who were her contemporaries, which gave her the strength to do so.”

Adrian straightened. “And you killed her anyway.”

“No. I didn’t kill her. She knew what was coming. She knew the price. Hers was a willing sacrifice made with the promise that I would see to it that Ollie would not come to harm.”

Adrian scoffed. “Well, you sure fucked that one up, didn’t you?”

“Oh, no. Not in the least,” Preston said, surprising Adrian. “That’s why we’re here now. We’re going to put a stop to it once and for all, and it will be because Ollie has the strength to do so. He’s the only one who can do it.”

Adrian was counting on a murderer to rescue Ollie. That fact wasn’t lost on him. The man in the room had killed enough people—mages, no less—to make a prolific serial killer jealous. But he didn’t have a choice. And he had a feeling that maybe Preston Hartley was right.

“Then what are we waiting for?”

They started for the door to Preston’s workshop, but Preston stopped, his head tilted in a way that indicated he forgot something. He turned and strode to another cabinet in the room as he fumbled through the keys on his key ring. He inserted a key and held his hand before the door, muttering something in a language Adrian had no hopes of understanding, and the wooden doors popped open.

Inside were more weird vials and items. Preston reached for one in the back, plucking it out gingerly between his thumb and forefinger before holding it up as if examining it. The dark glass swirled with something inside it.

“What’s that?” Adrian asked.

“I’m hoping it will be something that offers me some forgiveness.” Preston turned back to Adrian as he put the vial into his bag. “And perhaps it will be the thing to tip the balance in our favor.”