Armageddon's Ward Read online

  It was too late, though. The three men saw us. They were just far enough away that I couldn’t make out their features. One of them let out a shout, and a spell exploded right in front of us, showering us with dirt and rocks. I raised my hands to block my face and felt something sharp dig into my left arm. Chas let out a burst of sound, and the three men were blown backward. We ran north then west, trying to get far enough uphill to go around them. Peter shouted my name, and I turned towards him.

  I should have known better. I should have ducked instead of turning.

  Armageddon's Ward

  T.J. Kelly

  Persistence Publishing

  Fort Worth, Texas

  Copyright © 2018 T.J. Kelly

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018935374

  ISBN: 978-1-948744-00-3 (hardback)

  ISBN: 978-1-948744-01-0 (paperback)

  Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition 2018

  Persistence Publishing

  P.O. Box 6663

  Fort Worth, Texas 76115

  [email protected]

  www.persistencepublishing.com

  www.tjkellybooks.com

  For my family.

  ONE

  Utter Darkness

  The last three steps were the hardest, but I finally managed to throw my parents over the edge of the cliff.

  I thought it would help, but it didn’t. Tears still overwhelmed me. My hands trembled so much that I was afraid I might drop the urn that had been holding their ashes. It was massive, an ancient relic passed down through the generations until it ended up on a pedestal in the center of the sunroom. And antiques were never light. It was like an ancestor of mine wanted to make sure that the remains couldn’t push aside the lid and fly off on their own.

  So much superstition was mixed with magical fact back then, I guess I couldn’t blame him. In fact, if I had heard the same stories growing up, I probably would have added a few padlocks with the latches and hooks that were already there.

  Releasing ashes over a body of water was a part of the funeral ceremony. Magic whisked them off in the right direction in spite of the ocean wind, especially if the magician performing the ceremony was an Air user. I waited until the breeze died down, though. I didn’t want to find out the hard way that somebody with magic really did need to be there to control the release.

  I couldn’t wait for the official ceremony to let them go. Since the urn had arrived the day before containing their blended ashes, all I could think about was freeing my parents. Maybe relieve some of the agony I felt knowing they were separated from me in a way they had never been before.

  “Why?” I asked the night air. It was a question I had asked a hundred times since the car accident. “Why did you leave me? Why didn’t you take the guards? Why couldn’t you save yourselves?” My head pounded under the strain of my grief, and I wondered if I was going to have a stroke or something.

  Turning my back on the inky water below, I headed back towards the house. There weren’t any lights glowing in the windows, even on the third floor where the staff had their private rooms. Good. I didn’t want anyone to see what I had done.

  “It’s okay,” I assured myself. “Their magic is what completes the Ceremony of Remembrance. Not mine.” But I couldn’t make myself believe it, no matter how badly I wanted to. Ghosts of mocking voices filled the air around me. Echoes of the same taunts that had followed me from school to school, telling me I would fail.

  You ruin everything, Lia Rector. You’re a magical neuter. A failure. A loser.

  A freak.

  They were jerks. I hated how I could never seem to block them out. Maybe releasing the ashes by myself really was selfish. I could have just destroyed the connection I was supposed to have with my parents after their death. How would I even know until it was too late?

  Pushing aside my whirling thoughts, I reminded myself that I was alone. Nobody was there. Nobody saw what I did. Nobody could blame me if my parents didn’t make it to the other realm because nobody knew. Except me.

  I stopped walking and set the urn down on the stone-lined path to wipe the tears off of my face. I took a wad of clean tissues that I had stuffed into my pajama pocket and gently dabbed my cheeks. After two days of crying, they were red and raw. For the first time in my life, I realized that grief could hurt physically, too.

  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to control myself. But I had to find a way. Crying wasn’t helping.

  Sucking in a deep breath, I blew my nose one last time and then stuffed the crumpled tissue into my other pocket. It was kind of gross, but it was that or toss the tissue on the ground, and there was no way I would litter in a flower garden designed by my mother. It was too horrible to contemplate.

  I bent down and hefted the urn back into my arms. I had cradled it against me the entire trip from the house to the cliff. Now that it no longer contained their ashes, all my strength drained away. My arms were too weak to haul it back the entire way without a rest. The urn was heavy enough under the thin coating of gold to make me wonder what was hidden beneath. If I could tap into my magic, I would be able to sense its properties. Use a spell to make it lighter.

  Of course, I couldn’t. I never learned how.

  Finally, the French doors at the top of the patio stairs were within reach. I set the urn down again, opened the door, then heaved it over the threshold. Exhausted, my arms cramped and it fell, striking the wooden floor with a dull thud. The door behind me latched quietly and shut out the cool Pacific breeze. The pull on my strained muscles made me groan as I shoved the urn onto the pedestal where it belonged.

  I sighed with relief. The sharp intake of air caught on something in my chest, and more sobs came out when I exhaled. I grabbed another tissue and soaked it through as I trudged up the stairs. The wall beside me was made entirely of glass. Clouds rolled in and covered the moon, snuffing out the silvery light. I slipped into my bedroom. Locking the door behind me, I threw myself onto my bed and let go.

  ◆◆◆

  I finally stopped crying when it hurt worse than the pain I felt inside. Tears weren’t doing me any good, anyway. They were supposed to relieve some of the grief, but I was positive it was never going to go away. Nothing changed the fact that my parents were gone.

  Turning onto my side, I stared at the swirling colors behind my closed eyelids. I wished the bursts of light would form into pictures and tell me my future. The magic that controlled that spell still refused to respond to me, yet I knew what was going to happen anyway.

  At noon, my house would be filled with people wishing to show off. Some of the visitors would be there to pay their respects, but most just wanted to be seen in attendance as if it were the social event of the season instead of the funeral for my parents.

  A funeral on my birthday.

  “Ha,” I snorted. I didn’t really care if anyone was there for me or not. There were too many things to worry about that were more important than birthday presents or cake. Like how I was going to demonstrate to our visitors that I was the true heir and claim our family bu
siness as rightfully mine.

  I wiped my face with a crumpled tissue. The box had no more fresh new ones, and my pockets were empty.

  We always knew the day of reckoning would come. I had always been expected to prove my claim at some point, but my time had run out. My parents had died too soon. If I couldn’t perform my family’s spells, the Council would hold a competition, and the prize would be my father’s company. Centuries of the Rector clan’s greatest achievements lost to a stranger because I was a magicless freak.

  Sighing, I flipped over onto my other side. I knew my bedroom door was there, but I couldn’t see it. The room was too dark. As dark as the hole in my chest where my heart used to be.

  I held myself perfectly still, hoping that I wouldn’t trigger another crying fit. I needed to practice control so I wouldn’t lose it in front of the guests. I couldn’t stand that thought.

  My mother’s face came to mind. The wisp of memory clarified and her voice rang hollowly in my mind. “Never let them see you cry, Lia. Don’t let them know that they have the power to hurt you. If they think you’re weak, they’ll never stop trying to harm you.”

  She was right, too. Magicians were quick to take advantage of people. I mentally argued that it didn’t make me weak to miss my parents. My mother wouldn’t have agreed with that, and I was determined to make her proud of me. Not that I was sure she could even see me from where she was. I didn’t understand how that was supposed to work, and it was too late to ask her.

  I gripped my necklace, running my fingers along its slightly rounded points, tracing the familiar star shape. “Mother, if you can hear me, please help me. Tell me what to do. Please. And tell me how to do it.” I sucked in a deep breath, forcing all thoughts from my mind as I exhaled. Rolling onto my back, I dropped my arms to my sides and took another deep breath, held it a few heartbeats, then released. I waited.

  Nothing.

  No advice came. No signs appeared. There was nothing but sheer, utter darkness. If anything worked, that should have.

  My father’s lessons played out in my head. Rectors drew their power from Dark, rising above its negative influence, defeating it. That enabled us to control any magician who used Dark, too. We were the one family who stood between them and the power they sought. Always strong and fierce, the Rectors held them at bay century after century.

  Until tomorrow, when I lost it all.

  Pain shot through me. How was I supposed to live with that, anyway? My parents should have prepared me to lose, not to win. Loss was harder to handle, and my new reality. I thrust that thought aside, but my family’s history still played out in my head as if it wanted to punish me.

  Hundreds of years ago, magicians created formal businesses to maintain their magical skills and dominance. My family formed Rector Enterprises, and my father Donovan was the last CEO. We used Dark to bring goodness to people’s lives, selling spells to the rich and giving them away to the poor.

  Our company was also contracted by the Council to enforce their laws when the Magical Compacts were signed in 1592. That was the year British Parliament defined the mile by using feet. It was a time when everybody decided everyone and everything had to be pinned down.

  I snorted. Good thing I attended such prestigious schools, or else I might not have known that little factoid. That thought made me chuckle. A mistake, since laughter quickly turned into sobs. I let myself go for a few minutes, but then held my breath and pushed the tears away.

  “Stop it,” I ground out. Angry at my weakness, I forced myself to stand, then stumbled into my private bathroom to pull myself together. Grabbing a new box of tissues from where they were stored under the sink, I blew my nose, splashed cold water on my face, and then patted it dry.

  I was grateful that the room was still shrouded in darkness because I was unable to face myself in the mirror. I knew I would look like a total slob, and I didn’t want to deal with that, either. Still, I soaked a hand towel in cold water and wrung it out, bringing it back to bed with me to lay on my face. I needed to hide the evidence of my grief, and bloodshot eyes would give me away.

  “That’s it. I’m done. Mother, Father, I love you both, but I can’t keep wallowing in your loss. I need you to help me fight the Dark. And please, please, help me go to sleep.”

  I didn’t have a magic link to my parents. Talking to them was useless, but I needed the connection so badly that I tried anyway. I had to have guidance. Something, anything, to show me a way to succeed.

  Guilt burned through my veins like acid. The one-sided conversations I had in my head during the few days since their deaths were deeper than anything I had said to my parents in life. I loved them, and they loved me, but we never truly connected. Now it was too late to try. The sudden pressure inside of my chest made it impossible for me to catch my breath. One second, two. All the way to seven before I could breathe again.

  I threw my decorative pillows across the room, trying to work off some frustration. None of my thoughts would help me prove that I had magic. My memories held no clues about how I could keep the powers of darkness at bay.

  I was the last Rector standing, and I was going to lose.

  My anger bubbled over and turned into a shriek. At that moment, I hated myself and my lack of ability. The magic inside of me was just out of reach. My parents had spent years dragging me from place to place, meeting with all the experts. Yet I never learned to tap into my magic. I couldn’t prove I was a magician in time for my seventeenth birthday. I never figured it out.

  “Enough of this!” I cried into my mattress. “I’m done.” And I was. Finally, finally, the night overtook me, and I lost myself in the silence.

  TWO

  Failure

  I forced myself to rise when the sun’s cheerful beaming became too much to ignore.

  Exhaustion turned lifting my fluffy comforter into a struggle as I dragged myself out of bed. I stumbled into my bathroom and splashed water on my face, but it did little to shake off the cobwebs clouding my mind. Turning the shower up as hot as I could stand it, I carefully climbed in and scrubbed my skin until I felt like I was ready to face the day. Or as ready as I could be after another sleepless night.

  Thankfully, I could wield a makeup brush with the best of them. Styling my hair meticulously, I spent over an hour working it into a shiny chestnut waterfall. My eyes, a hazel mixture of brown and gold, practically glowed with sparkling health and vitality and power. That effect had been harder to achieve, but I finally managed it. I wasn’t about to let anyone disparage my appearance with backhanded comments about how tired I looked. Besides, I needed a mask to shield me from any genuine regrets.

  Slipping into my walk-in closet, I dressed carefully in a smooth, ankle-length gown of satin in varying shades of purple, the color of mourning and royalty. Both technically applied since the Rectors had always been a part of the ruling class. Not like that meant much anymore. Well, it wasn’t supposed to. Other magicians still treated us differently.

  As I walked back into my bedroom, sunlight made my dress sparkle where crystals had been sewn into a subtle pattern. Rector Enterprises provided a bulk of the spell crystals sold on the market and were included on my mourning gown as a sign of respect. The effect was gorgeous, but it felt almost obscene to wear something so bright and pretty to a funeral.

  I cut off that thought before I lost control. Somehow I had managed to find the strength to keep from crying again, and I wasn’t about to let a stray thought break me.

  The Ascension Ceremony was scheduled immediately after the funeral. There was no avoiding it regardless of the circumstances. I had to prove I was a magician before I could inherit, and I had to do it within three days of my mother and father’s death. The three-day rule was usually a formality because most magicians had already connected to their magic by the time they inherited their family’s business. For me, it was a double nightmare. I had to stand in front of everyone at the funeral and show them what I could do. Or in my case, not do.
r />   There was no law stating the Ascension had to take place on a magician’s seventeenth birthday, although traditionally it did. Seventeen was when magicians reached their legal majority. Only a legal adult could inherit. A member of the bloodline who was also a full magician capable of running the family business. And the Rector line ended with me.

  Sometimes, I hated all the laws that ruled our lives.

  The Ascension Ceremony required me to go barefoot, so I left my shoes behind when I went downstairs to meet my mostly-unwanted visitors. I actually managed to greet and hug and commiserate with the guests with clear-eyed dignity. Or something that looked enough like it to fool even myself.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” one woman said when I reached the ground floor. She had a wry smile on her face, and I could tell she didn’t mean it. She had hustled over to my side so she could show off that she was the first to speak to me.

  “Such a lovely couple,” said another. This time truthfully. Then again, even their enemies had to admit my parents were beautiful.

  “I’ll never forget the first time I met Miranda and Donovan,” a man murmured. I didn’t hear the rest of what he said when I was distracted by a flurry of activity near the French doors leading to the veranda.

  The wind tossed the sheer white panels covering every door as a symbol of the veil separating us from those we mourned, then abruptly settled as if soothed by a large, gentle hand. The fabric parted, and there he was. A commotion in the form of a man. Shocked silence dissolved into whispers and only one word was understandable.

  Armageddon.

  My uncle had arrived. His short black hair was shot with gray. Otherwise, he looked the same as he did the one time I saw him as a child. A memory of his bright silver eyes twinkling down at me played across my mind.

  I reached out to take his arm. The formal occasion dictated my actions, and the proper words fell from my lips without a thought. “Uncle, it’s lovely to see you, in spite of this sad occasion. Please, won’t you join me up front?”