Ritual of the Broken (Haunted Hearts)

Chapter 32

Chapter

Thirty-Two

F our mages untied Ollie from the chair. Two held him in place and worked at the restraints while the two from before intensified their spell to keep his own magic locked away. Still, he couldn’t help but smirk.

“It takes four of you to handle little old me? I’m flattered,” he quipped, but his attempt at levity fell flat when one of the mages twisted his arm behind him until he thought they might be trying to break it. The other did the same, and as they stood him up they bound his wrists together again.

As a unit, two holding him by the arms and the two behind him keeping the wall between him and his magic active, they moved toward the door.

They led him out of the room and down a short hallway. Ollie’s heart raced as they approached another chamber. Was this it? Were they taking him to his execution by dark beasts?

The room looked like a magical workshop. Tables lined the walls covered with an assortment of arcane components. Crystals of various sizes and colors caught the light, while dried herbs and flowers hung in bunches from the ceiling. There was also a bank of computers, a 3D printer, and an expensive espresso machine. Ancient tomes lay open, their pages filled with intricate diagrams and spidery script.

But the energy in the room was what Ollie noticed most. The power brushed over his skin like spider webs. This room had clearly been in use for some time, the sanctum for someone powerful.

Ollie’s gaze landed on a familiar object—Preston’s journal—sitting surrounded by other books on one of the tables. He wanted to grab it, wondering if it might wake Isabell’s spirit again. She’d been notably absent since the conversation in Mary Ann’s apartment. Either he tired her out by summoning her or there was something else at play keeping her away. With the magical restraints holding him in place, it was quite possible this place was on lockdown from any outside interference, physical, magical, or spectral.

At the far end of the room, Emmerich stood hunched over a workbench. In his hands, he cradled what looked like an ampulla—an earthenware carafe with a wide base and a long, slender neck. He was pouring in an oil of some sort .

The mages brought Ollie to stand behind Emmerich, who was hunched over his workbench, focused intently on his task. Emmerich’s hands moved with practiced precision as he added ingredients to the ampulla, his face a mask of concentration.

“Keep him close,” Emmerich instructed the mages holding Oliver, not even glancing up from his work.

Ollie cleared his throat. “Emmerich, listen to me. There’s still time to stop this. We can put an end to all of it right now.”

Emmerich didn’t respond, continuing his preparations as if Ollie hadn’t spoken at all.

Morwen’s face came into view at his side, silent yet grinning. She lifted a pair of long shears to his face. She’d stabbed him once already. It wasn’t above her to do so again. But Ollie only stared at her with his best attempt to appear defiant. He wasn’t sure how successful it was.

She touched the tip of the shears to his chin and slid then down the length of his throat in a kind of perverted way. He wanted to spit in her face, but it never seemed like a good idea to spit in the face of someone holding sharp objects to his throat. Is that how he would die, with his throat slit by ordinary-looking dressmaking scissors?

But instead, she turned the tip downward and sliced through the buttons of his shirt, leaving his shirt hanging open to his waist. Was that necessary? He doubted it was, but this was Morwen’s feeble attempt to intimidate him. There was no way he was going to show her that it was working .

Morwen smiled as she eyed his chest. “That looks like a nasty cut,” she said. It felt nasty. The cool air stung where it met the wounded flesh of the rune carved into his chest. “Hope it doesn’t get too infected. Oh, that’s right. You won’t be around long enough for that to happen.”

Ollie didn’t respond. He only glared at her. He hoped to one day have the opportunity to rub her face with a cheese grater.

A sigh came from Emmerich. “Just remove the shirt, Morwen, and…” He waved a hand at her. “Then go busy yourself somewhere else.”

Morwen gave Emmerich a dirty look. So, not everything was fine between them. At least Ollie had that little bit to hold onto.

She tugged at his shirt, taking it down as far as it could go without the guards releasing him, then she cut through the fabric until his arms were free, ruining a perfectly good shirt just to be a vindictive viper. She let the tattered fabric fall to the floor, and Ollie heard her footsteps recede someplace behind him, followed by the hard sound of metal onto a wooden table, probably where she dropped the shears.

The door to the chamber swung open, and a man strode in. He was tall and imposing, with sharp features and eyes that seemed to pierce right through Ollie. His presence commanded attention, and the other mages in the room straightened instinctively.

“We’re ready for him,” the man announced, his voice crisp and authoritative .

The four mages gripping Ollie began to move him toward an archway. Beyond it, Oliver could see a stairway leading up into darkness.

“Emmerich, please,” Ollie said, his voice urgent as he was pulled away. “This isn’t you. You know this is wrong. Don’t do this.”

Emmerich finally looked up, meeting Ollie’s gaze. His expression was sorrowful, a mixture of regret and resignation that made Oliver’s stomach twist.

Emmerich shook his head slowly. “You don’t understand, Ollie. They’re here. There’s no going back now.”

The mages dragged him through the archway. Who was here? What was waiting for him beyond those stairs?

Adrian walked up Michigan Avenue across the Chicago River and toward the Tribune Tower. The muscles in his arms nearly twitched, ready for the fight to come. Preston strode beside him, seemingly unconcerned. Adrian’s frustration grew with each step. He’d expected to stop and prepare, to formulate a plan of attack. His military training and years with CPD had ingrained in him the importance of strategy.

As they neared the building’s entrance, Adrian’s mind ran through potential scenarios. A hostage situation, multiple hostiles, innocents in the way… there were too many possibilities, and he didn’t like any of them. He wa sn’t SWAT, but he knew how to handle himself in urban combat.

The lack of preparation nearly had him frothing at the mouth. He anticipated a significant confrontation, but here they were, strolling up to the front door like tourists.

“Should I call in CPD for backup?” Adrian asked, his hand instinctively reaching for his phone only to remember it was gone. But he persisted. “I can tell them it’s a hostage situation. We’d have SWAT posted in every building with sights into the Tribune Tower.”

Preston glanced over, the bag he carried swinging from his shoulder and his expression a mix of amusement and exasperation. “And do what? Be distracting meat shields to take mage fire?”

Adrian’s hand dropped to his side. It was a dumb question, he realized. Preston was right. Regular cops wouldn’t stand a chance against magic users, and he’d only be sending his brothers into danger they couldn’t even prepare for.

“But don’t we need more people on our side?” Adrian asked him.

“I would love more allies. Do you know any mages you can trust? Any werewolves willing to jump into the fray and lend a paw?” Preston’s tone seemed frustratingly amused. It was becoming a thing.

“You’re the one who’s lived for centuries,” Adrian muttered as he stared down a group of tourists heading right toward them on Michigan Avenue. They parted as they passed, one of the men giving Adrian a wary glance backward.

“I have lived for centuries. And I’ve existed on the fringe of a Synod and mage society who believed me dead, an assumption I was in no hurry to prove false. There are mages in the Synod even more powerful than I, and I much preferred to stay among the living.”

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” Adrian said. “Who are we up against? What are we walking into here?”

Preston shrugged. “A ritual. Mages casting magic. Probably several of them.”

Adrian shook his head at him as they walked. “And you don’t see the problem here?”

“I see a werewolf who is naturally resistant to magic,” Preston said.

Adrian scoffed. “Well, let me catch you up on that. Multiple times in my life now, I’ve had mages use my blood to force me to do things I didn’t want to do. My blood in turn has put a lot of other people’s blood on my hands. And clearly, someone involved in all this has my blood now.”

“They do, don’t they? That does seem to be a problem for you.”

They walked until Preston stopped in the Plaza next to the Tribune Tower. Adrian turned to study the building as Preston dug into his bag. Mages always seemed to carry messenger bags. Next time he wanted to sniff out a mage in the crowd, he’d look for people with messenger bags.

Adrian eyed the Tribune Tower as it loomed against the darkening sky. The neo-Gothic spires stretched upward, their intricate stonework casting eerie shadows in the fading light. The building’s limestone facade seemed to absorb the last rays of sun, turning it a sickly shade of yellow-gray.

A chill wind whipped down Michigan Avenue, carrying the scent of fallen leaves and car exhaust—and a familiar ozone tang on the edge of it all. Tourists milled about the base of the tower, snapping photos and pointing at the famous stones embedded in the walls. But even they seemed affected by the building’s oppressive aura. Their laughter sounded forced, their movements just a touch too hurried as they shuffled from one side to the other.

Adrian watched as a young couple approached the entrance, then hesitated. The woman tugged on her partner’s sleeve, whispering something Adrian couldn’t quite catch. Whatever it was, it was enough to make them turn away, casting uneasy glances over their shoulders as they retreated down the sidewalk. Clearly, something was building that Adrian didn’t like one bit.

And he was about to march in there to try to stop it.

“What do we need to do now?” Adrian asked.

“You are going to take this,” Preston said.

Adrian turned to find Preston handing him a ring and a vial of something. Inside, the liquid was clear, but it could have been anything. “What is it?”

“A little something I cooked up not long after you arrived in the city.”

Adrian’s brow furrowed. “That was eight years ago. ”

Preston looked thoughtful a moment. “Was it? My, how the time moves.”

There were a lot more questions Adrian wanted to ask him, but there were more important tasks. “So, what does this do?”

“That is the result of several years of research. It’s temporary, unfortunately. Should last a day or two at most. But it will effectively change the structure of your blood so that the samples being used to control you will have no effect. I have the recipe back in my laboratory for when you need more. I made it for myself after my ordeal with someone using my blood for their own gain, but it should work equally well for you.”

Adrian’s heartbeat sped up even more than it was already. He eyed the vial as he held it between his thumb and forefinger. Ever since the first time Colonel Richard Langford used his blood to make him do something against his will, he feared that loss of control. This would stop that, if only temporarily.

Maybe he was being too trusting, but in that moment, he almost didn’t care. He unscrewed the cap and sniffed—an herbal bitterness with a hint of sulfur. The scent was stomach-turning, but if the contents did what they were supposed to do, Adrian couldn’t pass it up. He drank the vial.

The taste hit him surprisingly like a strong liquor. He waited. “Nothing happened.”

“Nothing you noticed, anyway,” Preston said. He moved toward the entrance to the Tribune Tower .

“And this?” Adrian held the ring in the palm of his hand. It looked like a wedding band. “If you’re asking for my hand in marriage, I’m not interested.”

Preston gave him a wry smile. “It’s just a simple trinket to hide the nature of what you are from the prying eyes of my kind.”

He studied the simple ring in his hand. “Okay. That’s helpful.” He slid the ring on his finger. And it fit, almost as if it was made for him. Adrian was putting a lot of trust into this man he only met a few hours prior—the man he and Ollie were both convinced was behind this whole thing to begin with. It didn’t sit well with him, especially after he just ingested a potion given to him by that same man. But if he wanted to save Ollie, what other choice did he have?

When they reached the door, Adrian stopped, and so did Preston. Again, Adrian was overcome with the sense that they were walking into an active gun battle with nothing but a slingshot and a dirty look.

“What do we do now?”

It was a question he felt like he was asking a lot, and that he would probably ask again, considering even after the past few days there was still so little he knew about how mages worked.

Preston’s lips curled into a grin that made Adrian uneasy. “We go inside,” he said simply.

Before Adrian could protest or ask for more details, Preston reached out and opened the door to the lobby.

Ollie stumbled as Emmerich and the other mages led him into the octagonal chamber at the top of the Tribune Tower. His eyes darted around, taking in the surprisingly large room dominated by an equally large circle inlaid into the wood floor. On all sides, a panoramic view of Chicago’s skyline shined through the windows that encircled the room. It would have been breathtaking… if Ollie hadn’t recognized the significance of the circle as a permanent casting circle, meaning this was to be the room of his death.

The first thing he noticed was an intricate weave of magic hanging suspended in midair, a writhing mass of darkness that seemed to devour light. Tendrils of inky blackness twisted and coiled, forming intricate patterns that hurt Ollie’s eyes to look at directly. This was dark magic and the stuff of its power was pulled directly from an evil place, a realm of total wickedness, dirtier than when he dealt with the demon. Within its depths, he caught hints of faces contorted in agony and silent screams.

Four of them. The souls of the four victims.

In the center of the shadowy weave, there was a hole, a place for one more soul. He didn’t have to look at the spell they used to create this monstrosity to know that hole was meant for him.

Surrounding this abomination were dozens of masked figures in elegant attire. They stood in small clusters, champagne flutes in hand, as if attending some macabre gala. Their masks ranged from ornate Venetian designs to grotesque depictions of mythical beasts. As Ollie was brought forward, a hush fell over the room. Every masked face turned toward him, the weight of their collective gazes making his skin crawl.

Ollie felt exposed, vulnerable, made worse by the fact that he was the only one in the room without a shirt.

His captors led him to a spot in front of the dark weave of magic with chains bolted to the floor. The chains were attached to his wrists, and the power draped over him by the two mages fell away. He tried again to summon his magic, hoping that maybe their focus finally faltered and he could at least attempt to do something to save himself. But his magic remained frustratingly out of reach. When he looked to the chains around his wrists, there were markings that were likely the reason he couldn’t find his power.

The silence in the room was oppressive, broken only by the soft whispers of the stolen souls woven into shadow.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Emmerich announced, his voice carrying across the chamber. “Our guest of honor has arrived.”

A murmur rippled through the crowd. Ollie’s heart raced as he realized that these people—these mages—had been waiting for him. He was the final piece of their twisted puzzle, and they were too eager to see him fall into place. His death was to be the highlight of a gala event, with the end of the mortal world the night’s big finale.

Someone started clapping until the whole lot of them followed suit. Ollie couldn’t see their faces, but he hated every last one of them.

“You’re all sick,” Ollie yelled.

There was little reaction other than the murmur of voices.

“I hope whatever demon you’re summoning feasts on your souls,” Ollie continued.

Someone in the room laughed. Whether they were laughing at him, what he said, or something else entirely, he wasn’t sure.

Once he was inside the casting ring, Emmerich spoke again: “Ladies and gentlemen, if you will, please take your places.”

The crowd began to move, to make way from the middle of the room to its fringes. Drinks were set on tables, and dresses swished as they all moved to form a circle just out the boundary of the ritual space and the shadowy weave at its center point.

Ollie stumbled forward as the mage guards released their grip on him. He found himself standing directly in front of the shadowy weave, its dark tendrils writhing mere inches from his face. The stolen souls within seemed to reach out to him, their silent screams resonating in his bones.

Then he was forcibly turned to face a stone table, the spot on the floor he was tethered to turning with him as if on a turntable. The table was an altar adorned with a host of tools that appeared ceremonial—a bowl and several candles being lit by masked figures in black tuxedos. Morwen was there, placing a knife. And a book. Not Preston’s journal, but a different book.

He stumbled again as the turntable lifted up to create a small dais that stood about half a foot off the floor. Hands made him stand straight again, then left him.

The magical hold keeping his magic away vanished. His power surged through him, responding to his call like an old friend. Hope flared in his chest as he prepared to unleash a spell, to fight back against this madness.

But the hope was cruelly short-lived.

A new force slammed into him, more potent than anything he’d experienced before. It was as if every mage in the room had focused their power on him simultaneously. Ollie’s muscles locked, his body frozen in place. He couldn’t even blink.

Through the haze of magical pressure, Ollie saw a figure step forward from the crowd. The man wore an ornate mask crafted to resemble a human face being torn apart, the skin peeling away to reveal a demonic visage underneath. The eyes behind the mask’s sockets gleamed a bright blue, his mouth a solemn line beneath the edge of the mask.

As the masked figure approached, Ollie fought. The power was there. This time, he could touch it. But his focus was being forced by the masked man, stolen from him and bent to the masked man’s will. The power the man wielded was unlike anything he’d ever experienced, even in those times when his magic surged out of control. He was a fly in a web of arcane energy, waiting for the spider intent to bring about his surrender.

But Ollie was not going to surrender. If they were going to take his soul, it was going to be tainted by his defiance. He hoped it would make his soul useless to them.

Beneath the mask, the man’s mouth formed into a sadistic grin as he came closer to Ollie. He reached up and lifted his mask to reveal his face, the face of…

Someone Ollie didn’t recognize. A youthful-appearing older man, perhaps in his early fifties, which in mage years could mean he lived for hundreds of years. Emmerich said Preston was dead, but Emmerich had been wrong before. About a lot of things, clearly more than Ollie ever knew. And Ollie didn’t know what Preston looked like. He’d been alive nearly three hundred years ago. It’s not like they had pictures of him in an old family album…

“P-Preston?” Ollie asked him.

A brief flash of confusion crossed his face, then recovered into a chilling smile, and he shook his head. “No.”

Then who was this man?

The man reached up and put a hand on Ollie’s cheek. Ollie jerked his head away, but the man persisted. Ollie snapped at him with teeth, and the man pulled his hand away. Adrian would have been proud.

The man chuckled. “You and I are going to change the world together,” he said .

Ollie gave him the best dead stare he could muster. “Sorry, my schedule’s packed. How about we pencil in the apocalypse for never?”

The man turned to the alter. He picked up the ampulla of oil Emmerich had earlier and poured its contents over his hands, rubbing them together as if washing them. Then he put his hands to his face and smeared the oil there. It was some sort of anointing.

Then, he stepped back from the altar. There was no preamble, no addressing the crowd. Who knows? They probably had a keynote speaker earlier in the evening. The ritual simply began, and Ollie felt each word like a physical blow. Ancient syllables sliced through the air, sending shivers through him.

The floor beneath them ignited with an eerie glow, revealing thousands of intricate runes. Ollie recognized the symbol etched into his chest among them, a sick feeling settling in his stomach. The masked figures surrounding the space raised their arms, palms upturned, joining the chant. Their combined power flowed visibly toward the man at the altar, surrounding him in a shimmering aura.

Ollie tensed as the man picked up the knife, certain his end had come. But instead of approaching him, the man moved to a specific spot within the circle marked with a twisted sigil that seemed to writhe and weave on its own. With a swift motion, he pricked his own palm. Blood welled up, trickling down his hand and staining his expensive clothes .

As the drops of the man’s blood hit the sigil in the floor, tendrils of inky smoke began to rise. They twisted and coiled, merging into a massive form that dwarfed even the largest of the dark entities, the Nepheshi, Ollie had encountered before. This creature stood easily twice the height of a man, its body a writhing mass of shadows that seemed to devour the light around it. Jagged horns curved from its head, and its eyes blazed with an unholy fire. Claws that, even as shadows, he imagined could shred steel flexed at the end of impossibly long arms.

The shadow demon’s mouth split into a grin that promised agony and eternal torment. It loomed over Ollie, radiating an aura of pure malevolence that made him want to scream. This thing was about to tear his soul from his body.

Even as the creature still formed, the dark smoke coalescing into something more solid than the others, Ollie could only stare at the beast. His executioner…

Until a noise from the crowd broke through. Ollie’s gaze darted to the edge of the circle. There, among the masked figures, was a familiar face.