“You’ll have to hold on to me or you’ll fall off.”
Nela glanced behind herself but this motorcycle didn’t have any handles she could hold onto, so she reluctantly gripped Darko’s sides. He revved the engine and Nela put her visor down. To her surprise Darko wasn’t a speeder. He didn’t exactly stick to the speed limit, but he didn’t scare her with his driving either. She wondered if he was already eighteen, the driving age for a motorcycle like this. The streets were empty and they arrived at their destination within fifteen minutes. It was in the inner city, not too far from the Cologne cathedral. This came as a surprise to Nela. She would have thought whatever Darko was going to show her was hidden in a remote place. She got off the bike and he did the same. Then he squatted down and started drawing something on the concrete before he sprinkled it with water from a small vial. When Nela got a good look, she saw that it was a pentagram. She removed the helmet. “What’s that for?”
“I need a portal to transport us to where we need to go,” he said, inspecting it closely. What was he looking for?
Nela kept her distance. “Why can’t we walk there?”
Darko pushed his hair back, which was a mess from driving without a helmet, then he looked up from his work. “We could, but that would mean I had to show you a physical entrance to the Chandelier Hall and that would mean you could give it to the Brotherhood and they could walk in – or at least try to. The barriers would hopefully keep them out.”
“Chandelier Hall?” Nela asked.
“It’s a safe place for our kind.” He stepped into the pentagram. “Now come. You’ll need to be close to me if this is supposed to work.”
Nela didn’t move. “So you don’t trust me with the location of the Chandelier Hall?”
“No, I don’t trust you. Not with information that concerns the safety of dozens of witches and wizards. If it were only my life on the line, things would be different.” He shrugged as if he couldn’t care less if he lived or died.
“I get it. I don’t trust you either.”
He smiled wryly. She stepped into the pentagram but he reached out for her and wrapped his arms around her. “What are you doing?” She tried to pull back. His grip loosened but he didn’t let go completely. “The transport is only going to work if I keep you close to my body. You’re coming along as my guest, otherwise the magical barrier protecting the bar from unwanted visitors would repel you and do God knows what else.” Nela noticed his flinching when he said the word ‘God’. A strange reaction to a mere name.
“Okay,” she said reluctantly and relaxed in his hold. It wasn’t that she was worried he would grab a feel but he was so hard to read that she preferred a safe distance between them. She clutched her purse in one hand, though she had a feeling that it probably wouldn’t do her much good in a bar full of witches and wizards. Despite that holding it made her feel safer. Darko muttered a few words under his breath. They were in Latin and though Nela had been forced to take a couple of years of the language when she was younger, she had forgotten almost all of it. After Darko spoke the last word, the pentagram around them glowed bright blue and got only brighter until Nela had no choice but to squint. Then they were ripped off the ground and their surroundings blurred into pinpoints of color. Their upwards travel was abruptly stopped and they hovered in front of a glowing wall – like a wall of water, only thicker until that glowed blue as well, and they were catapulted through it. Nela squeezed her eyes shut, expecting to be hit by something cold but she didn’t feel anything until she landed back on her feet. She stumbled and Darko had to steady her with a hand on her arm before he released her and stepped back. “What did you say in Latin?” she asked, willing her head to stop spinning.
“Usually I don’t need an incantation to travel, but the bar is protect by charms. It’s a sort of password that allows me to enter.”
She blinked a few times until her eyes could take in her surroundings.
They were in an underground chamber with an arched stone ceiling, cobble stone floors and walls. Two massive chandeliers hung from the ceiling and cast their glow on the long room. Due to its length the Chandelier Hall gave the impression of having a low ceiling, but Nela knew it wasn’t the case. She doubted anyone could even reach the light bulbs of the chandeliers with a standard ladder. The ceiling was covered with doors in all shapes – wooden doors, steal doors, arched doors, modern doors with glass windows – all of them had a pentagram painted on them with white chalk. “Why are there doors attached to the ceiling?”
“They are portals. With their help you can bridge great distances in a short time if you have the corresponding pentagram near you.”
“But you drew a pentagram and it worked.”
“Yes, but I drew it on exactly the spot where it needs to be for it to work. We can’t really burn a pentagram into the pavement in the middle of Cologne. Someone would notice. So the corresponding pentagrams all over Cologne and a few neighbor cities have to be drawn anew in the destined spot for every transport and they disappear the moment the creator enters the Chandelier Hall. Most witches prefer this form of travel since it’s harder to be followed.”
“But if the pentagram disappeared after we arrived here, how are we going to get back to your motorcycle?”
“It’s easier leaving the Chandelier Hall than entering it. Don’t worry.”
Finally Nela let her gaze stray over the people sitting at tables around the room. Many of them were watching Nela and Darko with mild interest, probably because they were standing in the middle of the room and not sitting down.
”Come on. Let’s get something to drink.”
Nela followed Darko toward a long bar where an ancient man with only one eye was drying huge mugs. His eyelid over his empty eye socket had been sewed shut. His other eye scanned her from head to toe before switching to Darko. The old man let out a grunt, which seemed to be his way of asking them for their orders. Nela couldn’t see a menu anywhere, but she needn’t have bothered.
“Two Dragonblood,” Darko said.
“It isn’t real blood, right?” she whispered in a rush while the old bartender was busy filling two mugs with a dark, steaming liquid.
“Of course it is.” His dark eyes were dead serious, but then he shook his head with a wry smile. “You really don’t know much about your kind, do you? Did the Brotherhood tell you that witches who were practicing magic drank blood?”
“No, they didn’t.” She glared. “But I wouldn’t put it past you to drink blood.”
“Do you? Why?”
“Because you have something dark about you. If there were vampires, you’d be the first I’d peck as one.” She flushed. She’d sounded like an idiot.
“What makes you think there are no vampires?”
“Oh please. I’m not that naive,” she said, accepting the mug the old bartender held out to her.
“We’ll see,” Darko said. Then he led her to a small round table in a corner. Nela glowered at his back before she sat down across from him. She bowed over her mug and took a sniff. It smelled like hot wine punch that her mother always drank on the Cologne Christmas market. She took a sip and her throat felt like it had caught fire. She started coughing. “What’s that?” she spluttered, her eyes watering. Darko took a deep gulp from his own mug as if to taunt her. “It’s mead.”
“This isn’t normal mead,” she said.
“It’s spiced up a bit.” He gave an infuriating shrug, peeled out of his black coat and leaned back in his chair. For the first time since she knew him, he looked close to being relaxed. He wore a thick black wool pullover with a hole in the left sleeve. Before she could tear her gaze away, he noticed. “I don’t care much about clothes.”
She didn’t say anything and instead took another gulp of the Dragon Blood – which burnt less this time. She wished it was the same with her tattoo, but the pain there didn’t seem to become less the more she thought about magic.
“So,” she began uncertainly, letting her eyes
wander over the posters that covered the walls. She froze. There was a poster with Witch Riot. They’d given a concert in the Chandelier Hall a couple of weeks ago. Most of the witches and wizards sitting at the tables around Nela looked too old to care about pop music, even if they were protest songs. “Did you go to the concert?”
Darko followed her gaze. “No. I don’t have much free time.”
“What are you doing?”
He twisted the mug in his hand. “I’m working for a wizard.”
That could mean pretty much anything, but Nela could tell that he wouldn’t tell her more tonight. Silence fell over them and Nela took another sip from her mead and read a flyer from a healer who offered her healing magic. The mobile phone number was written on snippets and most of them were gone.
“You’re wrong, you know?”
“Huh?” Nela turned to him. “Wrong about what?”
“About vampires. They still exist. Not in this part of the world of course. They were hunted down long ago. Today they live in remote places. Few have supposedly survived in the solitude of Transilvania. Money nobility that can bribe the police or military to protect them. There are even a couple of werewolf packs in the north of Scandinavia.”
He didn’t look as if he was joking. “Not a pleasant thought that there are vampires out there,” she said, still unsure if she should believe him.
“That’s probably the same thing many humans are saying about us.”
Nela felt the heat rise into her cheeks. She sounded like a prejudiced idiot. “So all the witches and wizards who come here are practicing magic?”
Darko nodded. “Yes. Some more often than others, but people who come here believe that it’s our right to do magic, maybe even our duty.”
“Duty?”
“Like I said, we’re helpless if we forget how to use magic.”
“If we forget to use magic, we’ll be as good as human in the eyes of the Brotherhood. They’ll probably leave us alone if that ever happens.”
Darko snorted. “Do you honestly believe that? No matter what we do nothing will change the fact that we’re tainted, that we are a filthy brood in their eyes. If a child is born into a family of witches, even if the child isn’t magical itself, it’ll be tainted by association. Dirty, flawed, impure. Bad blood can’t be purified by good behavior. Rats don’t carry the black plague today but we still fear them like the devil. We are rats to the Brotherhood. We will always be less to the Brotherhood. But the moment we’ll have forgone our ability to do magic completely, they’ll eradicate us from this world. If you believe otherwise, you’re a fool.”
Nela held her breath. Darko’s eyes blazed with anger unwarranted by her simple question. There was so much anger, so much hatred in him. She didn’t think she could ever muster up so much of an emotion. What had happened to make him the way he was? But that was a question she didn’t dare ask now, maybe never. He stared at her for a long time and she was sure his eyes would strike her dead any second. Then he blinked, once, and all of his emotions slipped off his face like water, and left was an eerily calm mask. A few people had turned their way when he’d raised his voice, but they looked away quickly when they caught his eyes. “I shouldn’t have shouted at you like that.” He hadn’t exactly shouted, but the menace in his voice had given her chills.
“If the people here are all practicing magic, how come none of them have signs of an iron poisoning? Or is there an antidote?”
“Maybe there is, but I’ve never heard about it. Most people have removed the tattoo or never received it in the first place. If you live in the shadows of society, its rules can’t reach you.”
“Do you have a marking?”
“Yes, but not one I received from the Brotherhood,” he said coldly. “Let’s not talk about that. What do you know about witches?”
Nela was taken aback. “I know that magic is hereditary. Only very few children born to magical parents aren’t witches or wizards themselves.” Again his face tightened. She hesitated. She didn’t know much more. “We have our own holidays, but of course we aren’t allowed to celebrate.”
Darko let out a sigh. “Some magic is intuitive. We don’t have to learn it. It comes natural to us. Like your healing magic. You touched the boy in front of the church without meaning to heal him, so I suppose you’re a natural at healing spells.”
Nela shook her head. “I can’t really heal myself. Except for once or twice, but always by accident.”
Darko watched her closely. “Is there any other kind of magic you ever did by accident? Maybe when you were younger? Small children often have more trouble suppressing their magic, they don’t understand that it’s wrong. Only later when we’re old enough to know how cruel the Brotherhood’s grip on us is do we lock our magic into a cage.”
“I don’t think so.” She paused. “Maybe. My parents never talk to me about magic.”
“Maybe you should ask them.”
“I don’t think that would go over well.”
“We don’t really differ between witches with different talents, except for the ability to raise and control the dead.”
“Necromancers?” Nelas asked in awe. “They exist? I thought the Brotherhood had killed them all during WWII as punishment for their cooperation with Hitler.”
“They didn’t all work for Hitler. That’s a lie the Brotherhood spread.”
“But their army of dead almost defeated the Allied Forces.”
“That doesn’t mean all necromancers were involved. But this isn’t a history class. All you need to know is that there are still necromancers around – in hiding of course.”
“The Brotherhood won’t like that.”
“No, they don’t.” Darko cleared his throat. “So have you thought about my offer? Do you want to learn magic?”
“What about my tattoo?”
“It’ll spread if you practice magic. We can’t stop the magic from working unless we remove it. I know someone.” Darko glanced around. “He isn’t here, but I could arrange a meeting if you like.”
“But if someone sees my back, they’ll know what I did. They’d know I was disobeying the Brotherhood and I’ll be punished.” That, and she didn’t trust Darko or his acquaintances. “The tattoo can protect us. If we live by the laws, it’s easy to prove our innocence.”
“But can you live by the laws, hm? You already broke the law once by healing that boy. Are you sure you’ll never do it again? You’ve had the tattoo only for a few weeks, now think about the next decades without ever doing magic. Can you really suppress your need, your want?” His voice had become a whisper. It pulled her in and she knew if she didn’t get a grip on herself she’d agree to his offer.
“The tattoo isn’t all bad. Some witches even wear clothes that show it off.”
Darko scoffed. “Stupidity knows no end. It’s a sign of our slavery!”
“It’s not like the Brotherhood made the law alone. It’s what we all decided on.” She sounded exactly like her father.
“I was never asked,” Darko said acidly. “And neither were the majority of witches. We were forced into this treaty. It was either agreeing to the tattoo and ban of all magic, or burning at the stake. That isn’t freedom. The Brotherhood forced this upon us. They destroyed who we were. They made a once proud people ashamed of what they are. If I could, I’d kill every single brother and spit on their graves.” He sucked in a breath and squinted down into his empty mug.
Maybe he’d realized he’d gone too far. Saying something like that, even in this surrounding, couldn’t be counted as normal. Nela’s head was buzzing with alcohol and confusion. “Can you please take me home?”
His head shot up, a look of incredulity on his face.
“I…I can’t commit to learning magic,” she said firmly. “Not yet. I’m sorry for wasting your time.”
He rose from his chair and pulled his coat on. There was no trace of emotion on his face when he handed her a small white card. “This is my mobile phone number.”
She took it, surprised that he owned one. He didn’t seem to be someone who had many friends to text with. “Send me a message when you change your mind,” he said simply. When, not if. And Nela knew he was probably right. She was kidding herself, if she thought she could spend the rest of her life without magic. There had to be a way to do it without drawing the attention of the Brotherhood. First she needed to talk to her mother.
Chapter 10
The Master shook his head, his gnarly fingers white from their grip on the workbench. Darko braced himself for his anger.
“Why are you wasting our time? Maybe she’ll never agree to learn magic. Why do you bother trying to convince that girl of the witch ways? She’s obviously stuck in her little human pretend world. Your only concern right now should be to confirm that she’s a necromancer. If she doesn’t want to behave like a witch, that’s her problem. We don’t need her to be capable of doing magic, her magical blood is enough for the ritual.”
Darko held his head low. “I have to gain her trust. I thought you said she’ll have to follow me of her own free will and that requires her trust.”
“Is that the only reason why you took her to the Chandelier Hall for a mug of mead?” Master Valentine asked, eyes sharp like those of a hawk.
Darko furrowed his brows. “Master? You know I only serve our purpose.”
“I was a young man once. I dabbled in love once. There’s a point in every man’s life when he loses his head over a woman. You’ve been alone for a very long time. Be careful that your heart doesn’t trick you. Love is a loser’s game. There’s nothing to gain, only heartbreak.”
“I’m not interested in the girl in that way. I never even considered it. My parents loved each other more than anything and it got them killed. They couldn’t let go of each other; that’s why my sister and I almost died as well. That kind of love is for fools. There’s only one person in this world that I care about and that’s my sister. For her I’m doing this. If I knew it would bring Milena back, I’d kill Nela on the spot.”