A Book of Spirits and Thieves

Perhaps she was right. There could be more to Barnabas than trickery and ruses.

The darkness slowly faded from Barnabas’s expression. “We shouldn’t wait any longer to practice your magic. Why don’t you go ahead and try to summon a spirit right now? Prove to yourself and to me you can do this magic on command, and then send it back to where it came from.”

Maddox immediately grew tense. “You make it sound like it’s easy for me. I’ve never been able to consciously summon a spirit. The only ones I can commune with are already present.”

“I believe you can do it—with ease, no less. You just don’t believe it.”

“You sound like Becca. . . .” Maddox then closed his mouth, regretting his words the moment he spoke them.

“Ah, so that’s her name, is it?” Fresh amusement flickered in Barnabas’s eyes. “Beck-ah? Are you there? Are you sitting next to young Maddox here? You must be a pretty lass, if he’s so taken with you.”

“Looks like his mask is back in place,” Becca said, fighting a smile.

“It’s not funny,” Maddox said, annoyed that Barnabas kept saying such embarrassing things.

“What do you think, Becca?” Barnabas asked. “Do you think Maddox should show us and himself that he has more control over his magic than he thinks he does?”

“I absolutely do,” she said, even though only Maddox could hear her reply. “I know you can do this. You can do amazing things and the only one who doesn’t believe it is you.”

Now it was two against one. That wasn’t fair. “It’s not that simple.”

“Stop overthinking it and just do it.”

They continued to encourage him to embrace the very thing that he was now certain was a curse. Finally, he became tired of resisting. “Fine. I’ll try. But I need something silver to trap it, just in case.”

“Have you ever tried trapping spirits in other precious metals? Or, perhaps, a mirror. Or . . . an apple.” Barnabas threw one of his stolen pieces of fruit at Maddox, who caught it in his right hand.

Maddox took a big bite of the sweet, juicy piece of fruit, chewed, and swallowed. “I know it works with silver, so let’s stay with that for now.”

Barnabas glanced down at his hand. “Here.” He pulled off his thick ring and tossed it at Maddox. “That’s silver. At least, that’s what the man I stole it from told me.”

Maddox inspected the ring with doubt. “Normally I do it with a silver container.”

“What difference does it make? Like you said, you can’t even summon spirits on command. You won’t even need to use it.”

The challenge had been issued. He didn’t want to fail with Becca watching his every move so closely.

“Fine.” He closed his eyes, squeezed his hands into fists, and concentrated as hard as he could.

I’m not afraid of you, he thought. Show yourself, spirit.

Maddox pried open an eye to see Barnabas studying him, crunching down on another apple.

“Nothing interesting has happened yet,” Barnabas informed him.

Becca had moved to sit on the fallen log behind him. “Keep trying,” she suggested.

He squeezed his eyes shut again and tried to push away his doubt and fear.

He concentrated on the smell of the campfire. The sound of crackling wood. The cool breeze brushing against his arms and face. The sweet taste of the apple on his tongue.

Then: darkness before him, surrounding him. Darkness everywhere.

“Come to me now, spirit,” he said aloud. “Show yourself. I command you to obey.”

His voice was calm and confident, and he summoned the shadows as if they would respond to him. As if they would obey him.

Something shifted deep inside him. The brisk evening air grew colder.

Becca screamed. “Maddox!”

His eyes snapped open.

A shadow had risen from the ground, a formless, shapeless shroud of midnight. It edged closer to Becca, and she rose from her seat to stagger away from it.

“So hungry,” a ragged, broken, and pained voice said.

“No,” Maddox gasped.

Barnabas shot up to his feet and dropped his half-eaten apple. “Did it work?”

Maddox didn’t reply. Instead, he moved swiftly toward Becca, focused on nothing but saving her. He grabbed for the spirit, but his hands went right through it, the smoky substance of its form icy cold.

“What’s happening?” Becca cried. Unlike him, she was able to make contact with the shadowy creature, Maddox assumed with growing panic, because they were both in spirit form. “How do I stop it?”

“She will make a fine meal,” the spirit said. “Much gratitude for summoning me here, necromancer.”

He froze with fear. This spirit had the power to devour Becca, to destroy her. To kill her.

And he had been the one to bring it here.

Becca shrieked as the spirit swirled around her like a thick black snake, pulling her up into the air. She fought against it but appeared to be weakening. Her punches and kicks slowed, her skin became pale and ashen in mere moments.