Words of Power (Alice Gray Book 3)

64

The thick grey dust billowed and buffeted the shimmering barrier of the blood magic circle. The dense colour shifted into swirling clouds as some movement from within disturbed the heavy air. The ancient words were repeated over and over, faster and faster in whispers that ran in to each other adding a kind of noise-texture to the dust that still couldn't reach us.

Gradually as the words reached a crescendo of agitated speed, the dust parted, creating a path through the Minster's Nave. Straight walls of solid grey ran up either side of the opening, all the way up to the Minster's ceiling. It took my eyes a moment to focus on the dark figure at the top of the opening, but as his slow progress brought him closer, it was impossible to mistake that rough hessian cassock.

Brother Jerome approached the blood magic barrier, his large hood shielding his face. When he stood just a couple of feet away from me, he lifted his head.

Terror froze every part of my body. Even my heart stopped beating as my existence faltered in an unholy mix of disgust and awe, before painfully stuttering back into the fast-paced rhythm of fear.

It was Brother Jerome alright. But there was something terribly wrong with him.

Instead of skin, muscle and bone, his features were constantly shifting, made up by swarthy dust particles that never quite settled in the right place for more than a second. The curves and planes of that cherubic face were there but the clear blue eyes and blond curls that had seemed such an antithesis to his sharp vampire power were long gone.

He was made up of shades of grey now. Grey dust with a life and a voice of its own.

The particles settled into a smile so disturbing that I was almost glad when they swirled again, pulling his face apart before resting again into another unnerving set of his features.

"What are you?" My words came out as a whisper, my brain not capable of producing more force while it still tried to make sense of the constantly shifting angles of Brother Jerome's face.

He brought his hand up to his ear. Or what should have been his hand, had the sleeve of his cassock not contained a creepy hand-sized cyclone of dust. I couldn't hide my fascination as it formed the shape of a hand and then cupped his ear, a mocking gesture to suggest we couldn't converse with the blood circle between us.

Nice try. But there was no way this barrier was coming down with that death-dust swirling around on the other side. The blood-circle might be scary as hell, but it served a function right now, and I'd worry about the rest when Brother Creepy over there had blown away.

His weird disjointed face shifted again, the dust particles like grains of sand slipping on a windy dune, before re-arranging themselves into features that I knew so well that I could have drawn them in my sleep.

High, sharp cheekbones, perfect square jaw, broad forehead and eyes so large that you could lose yourself in them for a lifetime. If it wasn't for the murky grey colour, I would have thought it was Thomas standing on the wrong side of the barrier.

I knew it was a trick but I couldn't stop myself glancing back to reassure myself that the real Thomas was still behind me. Of course he was, but his eyes were glued to the fake Thomas dust monster that was really Brother Jerome. My gaze travelled back, unable to resist knowing what that living-dead stuff would fashion next.

It's lips moved but the sound came from the real Thomas behind me.

"It is no use resisting. Your time has past. We have risen."

The words came out of Thomas's mouth, in his voice, but there was nothing of himself in them, his passion or even his arrogance. Oh how I longed to hear that superior patronising tone right now.

I might even do what he told me, if only it was really him that spoke.

"What have you done to him," I seethed at the creepy dust Thomas.

"He belongs to us, just like you are theirs. It is our time now. We are risen."

The real Thomas spoke, but the dust Thomas raised a grey cyclone up into a hand and pointed at the angels.

"Fascinating," I quipped, "But what are you?"

"We are Death."

Uh oh! That doesn't sound good... hope you're enjoying the story.