Jen froze as she felt the magic.
Cloaks fluttered as numerous people emerged from the air. Horrified, Jen stared at the new arrivals, all wearing dark monk’s robes and hoods. A black eye had been carved on the forehead of every dark monk. Their invisibility spell had been so perfect that she hadn’t noticed anything wrong. These wizards where not part of Saint Germain's entourage.
One of the dark monks stepped forward. "The folio!"
"No, I don’t think so," Mark said.
Then it all happened fast. One blow hit Jen, throwing her to the side. Out of nowhere a wooden totem about a foot long appeared. The folio flew into one of the dark monk’s hands while the totem landed next to Mark. He screamed. Wooden tentacles drilled into his chest as if the totem were alive. Blood sprayed everywhere. She heard bones crunching.
Jen rose.
The dark monks disappeared before her eyes, as if they were nothing more than wisps of fog that just happened to take the folio with them.
Jen turned to Mark …
… and froze.
Her friend and comrade was surrounded by a sphere of fog. He was slowly being raised into the air. The figure pulsated like the beating heart of some unholy creature. She could sense what that thing was doing.
"Run," Mark croaked.
"Forget it." Jen executed several power strokes in the blink of an eye. But the fog fended them all off. She tried to remain calm. Some of the knowledge she had received at the awakening of her magic had been lost, as happened to everybody. She hadn’t worked on recovering. But she was still familiar with the essential laws of balancing magic.
She grabbed her sigil and transferred her own magical essence into the sphere. A balance was struck. It bought her time. But the creature reacted. It recoiled, throwing Jen across the room and against a shelf. The artifact continued to feed on Mark’s magical essence like a parasite.
"Run," he squawked. "Or we'll both die."
Jen clenched her fists. Rage bubbled up. There had to be another way. "No."
"Yes," Mark said gently. "You only have minutes left."
She turned off all emotion, turned around, and ran. As she ran, she touched the contact stone under her shirt in an attempt to inform the Castillo. The black magic that hung everywhere in the air prevented it.
In her mind, she saw the last magical essence in Mark’s sigil being consumed.
Once that happened, every wizard was in mortal danger and had to stop all magical activity immediately. For then, the spell woven over the sigil was consuming aura energy.
She ran down the stairs, rumbling, but her ability to see through walls let her keep an eye on her friend and comrade.
Mark’s aura flared up into a greenish sphere in the shape of his body. The artifact drained everything from it, consuming the last protective shell normally intended to tame the sigil and protect it at the same time.
Jen crashed against the front door in mid-run. The fog was long gone. With trembling fingers, she raised her essence wand and drew the symbol for a matter transfer.
Wood to fog.
Finally the obstacle disappeared and she rushed out.
A look back showed her that the end had come. Mark’s aura had disappeared. There was no essence and no aura left, nothing that could hold the sigil. It expanded abruptly. An aura of pure fire instantly turned Mark into ash. The entire manor house trembled, its walls crumbled, the window panes exploded. The shock wave flung Jen away from the house and she lost consciousness.
3. Aura Fire
Kevin’s body knotted up with tension. From one moment to the next, he was wide awake. A huge green flame blazed in his mind before it was swallowed by blackness. Groaning, he rolled to the side, crashed to the floor, where he stayed, trembling. Tears prickled in his eyes.
Mark is dead.
The network that linked the team had transmitted the moment of Mark’s death to all the others. At the same time, the moment the sigil erupted and transformed into the pure essence of magic, was perceptible to wizards all over the world. The fabric of magic cried out because one of its own was gone.
"Hey," a tender voice rang out. Max was suddenly next to him, placing Kevin’s head into his lap. "Breathe in and out slowly."
An eternity seemed to pass. His muscles relaxed. The physical pain retreated. But the other pain, that of his soul, remained. Understand, realize, process: every thought was molasses-slow.
Max looked down at Kevin with sadness. His dark blond hair was still tousled and the last remnants of sleep were still visible in his brown eyes. He was only wearing shorts. "Who is it?"
When they became an item three years ago, the council had taken Max off Kevin’s team. When wizards start a relationship or an affair, they are no longer allowed to belong to the same mission team. So Max had only sensed that someone had died, but not who.
"Mark," Kevin said. Trembling, he rose.
"What about Jen? Weren’t they both out there?"
"Yeah. But she seems to still be okay." He staggered briefly. The image of the aura fire still left an afterimage in his mind. Now they had to act quickly. He slipped into jeans, put on a shirt, and tucked his essence wand behind his belt.
Then he ran out.
The Council had to be informed, as did the others. Fellow wizards came up to him in the corridors. The shock of the aura fire was written all over their faces, as they wondered who had died. He ignored the questioning looks.
Only the cold on the soles of his feet made him realize that he had run out of the room barefoot.
He couldn't care less.
He shoved a newbie aside, ran into a librarian, and just barely missed crashing into a member of the protectors of order. Then he finally reached the chamber. From here a narrow spiral staircase led down to the catacombs under the Castillo. Kevin almost stumbled as he rushed down like a human bullet. He could have broken all his bones, but he found his balance again at the last moment.
Sweat-drenched and out of breath, he had reached the crypt. She was already there and greeted him with a nod. "Kevin. What a loss your team has suffered. I’m sorry."
He gulped. No matter how hard Joan of Arc might try to move on their level, she remained an immortal with the life experience of centuries. It was almost impossible to be in her presence and not feel the sublimity that surrounded her like an halo. "Thank you. Has it reacted yet?"
"No," Joan said. She wore her strawberry blonde hair in a ponytail. A fashionable white blouse, jeans, and simple cloth shoes gave her the look of a woman in her early forties who was just bubbling with strength. "But it won’t be long now. The aura fire is extinguished, the sigil’ is now pure energy. In a few minutes it will manifest again… somewhere."
In somebody.
Nobody knew how a sigil chose a successor, but the legacy of magic would arise in them. A new wizard would be born, leaving behind his or her old life as a Nowiz.
Joan and Kevin were now standing in front of the most precious thing the wizards possessed: a solid stone of black onyx. Their most important task after protecting the mystic Wall was to protect it from the hands of the dark wizards. For over a century now, dark forces had been trying to tear down the mystic Wall so that they could once again rule over all magic. The barrier had erased people’s memories of the supernatural and concealed magic from the eyes of the Nowiz. But, to keep the wall standing, it drew the essence necessary to keep it stable from all magical creatures, which cut the power of all wizards.