Page 28 of Of Blood and Roses
Sera turned back a page before she answered. “It’s a series of instructions on how to…” She paused and glanced at Elyse. Something unrecognizable passed in her expression before she said, “How to make a demon corporeal.”
Elyse’s stomach fell to her feet. She had to sit. Why would anyone want to make a demon corporeal? She had seen firsthand the devastation a demon could cause with its body locked away in hell. To give a demon life, a body to freely roam the earth—it would be utter chaos. There would be no limit to the death and desolation they could cause.
She took a deep breath in through her nose then pushed it out through her mouth. This was a good thing—it meant they had some sort of direction. They would find whoever was trying to bring a demon to life and stop them before they could. However, her head was swimming, unable to stop imagining what sort of horrible future awaited them should they fail.
“I think we should stop for today,” Sera said, looking out the window to the half moon that shone above the distant treetops.
Jaime opened his mouth to speak, but Sera cut him off. “It’s getting late and we’ve hardly eaten all day. Let’s get some rest and face this with fresh eyes tomorrow.”
It seemed counterintuitive to stop when Elyse had so many questions, when her body craved more answers, yet relief filled her at Sera’s words. Perhaps a good night’s sleep would help them attack this better in the morning.
Everyone else seemed to reach the same conclusion as they nodded their heads in unison. “I’ll walk you out,” Elyse said, surprising herself with her ability to remember her manners. Perhaps she was acting on instinct, her body taking over for her frazzled mind.
Sera and Killian gathered up their few things, and Sera wished Jaime a good night. Killian didn’t say anything, instead stalking out of the library with furrowed brows. Elyse ached to hear his thoughts, to ask what he was thinking, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak to him.
When they reached the front door, Sera hesitated on the threshold for a moment, then abruptly pulled Elyse in for a tight hug.
“Read the entire passage,” she whispered in Elyse’s ear. Her heart hammered through her chest so powerfully that Elyse could feel it. “Alone,” she added, her voice nearly inaudible.
Sera pulled away, and Elyse tried to hold her wrist, to ask her what she meant, but Sera was too quick. Without a backward glance, she hurried out the door and down the walkway.
Chapter 19
- Elyse -
Elyse was restless as she and Jaime sat in the dining room to share a late dinner. She barely touched her food before retiring to her bedroom. For nearly two hours, she paced the room, circling the canopy bed and wringing her hands together, still stunned by what they had discovered. Why had Sera insisted that Elyse review the passage on her own? Thousands of possible reasons plagued her mind, but none of them made any sense.
She wished Jaime would go to bed already.
Finally, she heard him pad down the hallway and close the door to his bedchamber. By the light of a single candle, Elyse tiptoed barefoot down to the library, ignoring the wicked shadows cast by the candle’s flickering flame.
The book lay on the table, exactly where Sera had left it. With trembling hands, Elyse set the candlestick on the table and seated herself in the high-backed chair. Faint moonlight trickled in through the window, and Elyse had to strain her eyes to see the haunting words scrawled across the pages.
She let out a slow exhale and then began.
Demons and Corporeality, read the heading. It was written in capital letters, expertly drawn and flourished, harrowing and beautiful at the same time.
The first step was to make contact with the demon. The book listed specific instructions on how to summon the demon’s spirit and communicate with it across dimensions. Bile rose in Elyse’s throat as she read through the directions—directions she herself had followed.
Dig up the body of a deceased man and remove its skull. Place the skull into a cauldron of boiling water, adding witch’s salt and a drop of your own blood. Repeat the following incantation three times…
Elyse didn’t have to complete the passage to know what would happen. She had performed this very spell herself long ago, as a means to communicate with Lazarus. When the skull was removed from the water, it would be black and act as an apparatus to communicate with creatures from hell. It was a common enough spell—a party trick used by teenagers who wanted to dabble in the occult. Everyone she knew had tried summoning a demon at some point in their life, either out of desperation or curiosity. It shouldn’t have bothered Elyse to see the spell written out, yet she couldn’t help but shudder knowing the instructions that followed.
She read on, wary of what she might find.
Each of the following steps must be conducted precisely and in order, should you wish to extract a demon from hell and provide a vessel for them to roam the earth.
Elyse scanned the pages, her eyes flitting over the dozens of complex rituals that would eventually lead to a demon taking human form.
Burn the body of a deceased orphan… Poison a whore with anoraxium… Fornicate with a possessed woman…
One horrid act after another, all listing out the specific parameters needed for the spell to be deemed a success. Each was just as vile as the next, and they melded together in Elyse’s mind until she came across one particular set of instructions.
Murder a sleeping monarch using a blood-letting spell.
Elyse froze, the air in her lungs vanishing. She read the sentence again, then a third time, as a sobering understanding settled over her.
She had murdered a sleeping monarch using a blood-letting spell.