Chapter 19: The Windover Estates

Mandie made a left turn on the continually darkening road. She’d been hoping to be at Hal’s by now, but talking with Billie had taken longer than she’d expected. That wasn’t to say it wasn’t helpful, quite the opposite. The two of them back together again, it’s actually helped Mandie keep track of her thoughts. Plus, people had always said that two heads were better than one.

Together, they had figured out one aspect of Nia that Mandie hadn’t even thought about. Alice being a Tamer, Nia being an exorcist, the summoning sign. It was all accounted for, there was just no way to prove it. Not until Mandie went back to the Society, anyway. She bit her bottom lip as the grounds to the mansion came into view. She was hoping to fly out later tomorrow, but she needed answers now. She’d have to teleport.

She didn’t want to, she didn’t even know if she could right now, but she needed to see if their theory was right. Hal wouldn’t be happy, especially not with her skipping out on most of Christmas for the second year in a row. But, it had to be better than the alternative, right? If she was right and did nothing, both Nia and Alice could be in very serious danger. And, while she didn’t doubt Billie’s abilities, there was only so much a clairvoyant could do in terms of protection.

Mandie pulled onto the gravel road and parked in front of the house. She sat for a moment in her car, feeling out the energy of the building. It was still there. Nia hadn’t been there in about four days, but her energy was still lingering, protecting the building. It was impossible, with the amount of natural energy that traveled through this place, Nia’s magic should’ve vanished in a matter of minutes, hours maybe. And yet it still lingered.

She wasn’t going to question it, if anything, she was a little bit thankful for it. Even though Nia had argued that the ghost she encountered was much stronger than her, she’d managed to give it a pretty good fright. There hadn’t been any other incidents since, not even a stray ghost hanging around the perimeter of the grounds. Which had given Mandie extra time to create the new barrier for the grounds instead of setting up another shoddy one that normally only lasted a week or two. It was a welcome relief to her, and with the free time she’d gained from babysitting Nia, she’d been able to put enough time into the new spell that she was certain it would last a few months, at least.

Mandie popped open the door and pulled herself out into the cold. Almost immediately, she was chilled to her bones. She smiled as she looked at the shadows dancing on the edge of the forest across the street. There were some incredibly dangerous spirits out tonight, and still none of them were daring to cross the threshold onto the property. Mandie couldn’t help but laugh. The ever haunted Windover Estates didn’t seem so haunted any more, and it was all because Nia had freaked out a moderately low level spirit.

She shook her head and grabbed her bag out of the back of the car, then headed to the door. It opened before she even had a chance to knock.

“Oh thank god you’re here,” Hal said, though his customary jovial tone was gone. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for two days.”

“Why, what’s wrong?” Nothing felt wrong, that was for sure. So what was Hal getting at. “You haven’t had any more possessions, have you?” It seemed unlikely, but stranger things have happened here before.

“No no, nothing like that. At least nothing having to do with outside spirits, they’ve all been staying pretty far away since you brought that girl here. This is… well, it’s easier just to show you.” He motioned for her to follow, then headed further inside the house.

Mandie didn’t hesitate. She entered the house, dropped her bag by the door, and followed Hal up the wooden staircase and down the hall to the containment room. Just what was going on? He said no one else had been possessed, but this room was used for containing ghosts only, and the only way ghosts could get inside this place was through possession.

Hal opened the door, but didn’t enter. He hovered by the door frame, looking bleakly into the room. “We don’t come in here very often, so no one is exactly sure when it happened, but…” He paused, like he was at a loss for words.

Mandie moved to his side to get a better look at the room. She was stopped dead in her tracks. There was no way. Absolutely no way. This sigil had been designed and carved into the wall by Kauzic himself. It was specifically created for absorbing and suppressing spiritual energy. As far as she knew, it was one of the strongest spells for spiritual suppression on this half of the continent.

So how was it broken?

***

Kauzic was looking at the Bastion files again. It was technically Christmas, but he couldn’t pull himself away from the papers, even though he’d read through them multiple times already. Experiment 7828, also known as Bastion Files QRX10-22, after all this time they were coming up again. Considered one of the most dangerous and deadly experiments the Bastion had ever created, the reports on this experiment should’ve been buried forever.

He knew why they were popping up again, of course he knew, he just couldn’t figure out why Sebastian had told Mandie about them specifically. She was one of the few Firsts who had been lucky enough not to see the records when they were originally uncovered after the Fall. They should have nothing to do with her. But, Sebastian seemed to think otherwise.

It wasn’t like him to do something irrationally, he never did anything without a good reason, but for the life of him Kauzic couldn’t figure out what his reasoning could’ve been. It wouldn’t make anything better, it would just make the problem worse. As far as he was aware, it already had. Afterall, it wasn’t everyday that someone tried to break into the restricted section of the library. And by someone, he meant Mandie, because who would’ve been stupid enough to think they could do it other than an expert seal breaker with insane control over magical energy.

He took a deep breath and leaned back in his leather chair. Unless it really had just been a way for Sebastian to tell him they needed to talk. If it had been, it had worked, but it was probably the most un-Sebastian like way to go about it. He was getting off topic.

It’s not like any reasoning mattered anyway, it would all be coming to a close soon. Caden was leaving tomorrow afternoon and Sebastian was nowhere to be seen. That was good, very good. Silas was falling right into his trap. If everything went according to plan, well… He couldn’t think about that now. It could still go terribly wrong at this point, he needed to tread carefully.

Kauzic’s eyes flashed back to the files, they still mocked him. Even after all this time he still had no answers for what had happened all those years ago, and it drove him crazy. He closed them, he’d had enough torture for one night. There was no use destroying himself about the past, it wasn’t like anything could change now.

A nerve in his arm twinged, drawing his attention away from his thoughts. Someone was messing with his seal again. Couldn’t they just leave it alone? Sure, it was his, and sure, it had broken, but he’d been maintaining that thing for almost four years, it was bound to break at some point. Not that this one had exactly broken because it was old, but because he had needed the energy to solidify his connection somewhere else and the amount of magic it was trying to suppress was slowing him down. So he’d dropped his control over it and it had, surprise surprise, shattered, but he’d gotten the connection he was looking for, so it wasn’t much of a loss in the grand scheme of things.

A muffled buzz sounded from beneath the papers that were piled on his desk. Kauzic immediately began searching for his phone, digging through the papers, files, and books that cluttered the top of his desk. It only took a few moments to find, when he looked at it, he wasn’t surprised by the name. Mandie Smoke. She’d no doubt be asking about what had happened with the sigil, but he had nothing to tell her.

Regardless, he answered. “Hello, Mandie. How’s Hal?”

“Hal’s fine, but mind if I ask you something else?” He could hear the raised-eyebrow-look in her voice. He grimaced, she’d gotten that from Bea.

“If it’s about the sigil on Hal’s property, yes I know it’s broken. If it’s about how it broke, I’m afraid that’s on a need to know basis and, well, you don’t,” he replied, realizing for the first time just how tired he was and how much his eyes were stinging.

“I was more curious as to why it seems that a spirit's magic seems to have taken over the sigil,” she said matter of factly.

Sebastian paused. Was that possible? Probably. Unlikely, but why not?

“A spirit’s energy took it over?” He couldn’t sound panicked. Any sense of panic and Mandie would know something was wrong, she’d know he was lying to her. And, while he was ranked above her and had every right to do so, he also respected her enough to keep her on the same page as him. Most of the time, at least.

“Yeah. Is that possible?”

“Well, in terms of magic, anything is possible.”

“I mean is it possible that a spirit took control of it from you?” Mandie restated, obviously unhappy with his attempt at a joke.

“Not possible at all,” Kauzic lied. Of course it was possible, anything stronger than him could’ve taken control of that seal, it was based on power and power alone. Of course, finding something stronger than him would’ve been the real challenge. “I let go of that seal myself because I needed the power for something else. So whatever magic it was suppressing at the time would’ve taken over. Of course it wouldn’t be enough energy to supply it for long, by my estimated it’ll run out in a few hours.”

“So I only have a few hours to set up a new barrier or else all Hell breaks loose. Greeaaaat.”

Kauzic laughed, “Yeah, have fun with that. In the meantime, I have things that I really must be attending to.”

“Wait!”

Mandie managed to catch him before he ended the call. He placed the phone back up to his ear. “What?”

“Do you have any free time tomorrow, I’d like to talk to you about something.”

“Tomorrow?” Kauzic looked at the clock, it was about forty minutes after midnight. “By tomorrow do you mean today?”

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. “Oh s**t, I didn’t realize how late it was. Yeah, later today, you free?”

“Well, it’s a holiday. So no, I’m incredibly busy,” he replied sarcastically.

“Haha, very funny. I’m going to drop by later.”

“Alright, see you later then.”

“Yeah.”

Kauzic ended the call before there were any more side comments. Mandie was coming back to the Society after just a few days. That couldn’t be good. He looked back down at the file. How much had she managed to figure out in such a short time? This could be very bad.

Although, if Mandie was going to be here in the afternoon, that would open a window of opportunity that hadn’t been around earlier. Kauzic thought it over for a moment. It could work. He picked up his phone and dialed Caden’s number. The phone rang four times before a gruff ‘hello’ answered on the other end.

“Hey, sorry it’s late. Plans have changed.”

“Changed? What do you mean changed,” Caden’s voice replied, flat with anger.

“There’s a new opening, Mandie is stopping by tomorrow. So you’re leaving in the morning.”

Author's Note

Still a rough draft, but a short chapter overall