Sorcerers of the Nightwing (Book One - The Ravenscliff Series) Read online

  “I know I saw a light both times,” he insisted.

  “Then I’ll have to check,” Mrs. Crandall replied, idly flipping open the top book and scanning the page. “Perhaps there is a short in one of the old light fixtures up there. The wiring hasn’t been updated for nearly fifty years.” She closed the book. “I should thank you, Devon. You may have alerted us to a potential fire hazard.”

  So that was her answer. He accepted it, for now.

  “By the way, Devon,” she said nonchalantly. “I spoke with Alexander. He said you assaulted him.”

  “That’s crazy—”

  “You needn’t try to explain. I understand the boy’s imagination. But I suggest you try to make friends with him. Remember, I had hoped you’d provide a good influence.” She handed him The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. “Here. Would you bring this to him? I told him I’d send him some books to read. Until we decide what to do about his schooling, I want his mind on something other than television and the Internet.”

  She swept out of the library. Devon sighed, not relishing another encounter with the Bad Seed. But he trudged on upstairs anyway. Perhaps he could determine more of what the boy knew.

  He found Alexander once again in the playroom, stretched out in his beanbag chair, holding his iPad in front of his face. Devon peered around to see what he was looking at. It was that ugly old clown again.

  “Is that show on Netflix or something, too?” Devon asked.

  Alexander ignored him, keeping his eyes glued to his iPad.

  Major Musick was once again comparing the letters “M” and “N.” “Listen to how they sound almost the same,” the clown rasped.

  “Is this a rerun?” Devon asked.

  Alexander hit the stop button on his video, leaving Major Musick in extreme close-up, baring his ugly teeth. The boy looked up at Devon. “I don’t need to watch my show if you want to hang out,” he said.

  Devon looked at him oddly. “You want to hang out with me?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  Devon smirked. “You didn’t seem all that willing yesterday.”

  “Hey, I could use an older brother.” Alexander smiled. “Did you think we wouldn’t be friends?”

  Devon just studied him.

  The boy laughed. “I’m a tough kid to break through to,” he said, and something danced in his eyes. It was that challenge—that defiance, that secret knowledge—Devon had seen the first day.

  “I think you’ll enjoy this book,” Devon told him, handing him Huck Finn. “It was one of my favorites when I was your age.”

  Alexander accepted the book. “I can’t imagine you at my age.”

  “Well,” Devon said, “I was.”

  “Did you get into trouble like I have?”

  Devon considered his answer. “Well, I didn’t set fire to any curtains, but I had my share of trouble.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, there was this old corridor in this old churchyard. Sometimes we’d go there to hang out, my friends and I. We weren’t supposed to go there because it was old and the bricks were loose and there were bats that lived in the eaves. But of course, everybody liked to hang there. But this one time—it was Halloween—one of the priests came out and found my friend Suze and me there—”

  “What were you doing? Screwing?”

  “No,” Devon responded, struck by the child’s presumption. “We were just hanging out.”

  Alexander grinned deeply. “I’ll bet you were just hanging out.”

  “We were.” It came out harsher than Devon had intended. “We were just talking and squeezing vampire blood out of a tube.”

  “Vampire blood?”

  Devon laughed. “Yeah. It’s red dye, sold for Halloween costumes, and we were putting it on our hands and faces. But the old priest thought we were sniffing glue. He called the cops. Boy were they surprised!”

  Alexander grinned again. “It sounds like a really cool creepy old place.”

  “It was.”

  “I have a place like that where I go! Do you want to see it?”

  Devon frowned. “Why do I think it’s someplace you’re not allowed to be?”

  “Aw, come on. I thought you wanted to be my friend.” The boy lay back in his beanbag.

  “Where is it?”

  “The East Wing.”

  “Your aunt said nobody’s allowed in there.”

  “So don’t come. I don’t really care.”

  Of course, Devon wanted into the East Wing himself—badly—but to accompany Alexander there felt doubly dangerous. Mrs. Crandall had expressly forbidden it, and he wasn’t sure he could trust the kid to keep their jaunt a secret.

  Alexander looked up at him. “We could get in and out quickly,” he promised, “and no one would ever know we were there.”

  If there were answers in this house, Devon felt quite sure they were located in the East Wing. “All right,” he conceded, after considerable hesitation, “but this has to totally be our secret.”

  The boy beamed. “All riiiight,” he crowed, jumping to his feet. “Follow me.”

  Alexander ran out into the corridor as fast as his fat little legs could carry him. He scurried to his bedroom, Devon following, where from the top drawer of his bureau he withdrew an old silver candlestick, a short stubby white candle and a book of matches.

  “Hey,” Devon asked, “what do we need that stuff for?”

  Alexander fit the candle into the candlestick and held it out in front of him. “Where we’re going they’ve shut off the electricity,” he told Devon matter-of-factly.

  “Wouldn’t a flashlight be more efficient?” Devon asked.

  “It’s about atmosphere,” the kid replied. “It’s creepier this way.”

  In the hallway, the stillness of the house suddenly made Devon apprehensive. It felt as if they were all alone in the house. But that wasn’t the case, he knew: Mrs. Crandall was somewhere, perhaps sitting with her reclusive mother, and surely that crotchety Simon was lurking around as well. Cecily, too, probably—and Devon suddenly wished that the pretty, bright teenager was going with them on this trip.

  He followed the boy as he padded down the old Oriental runner that lined the long corridor, worn a pinkish gray in some places but still brilliantly red in others. Alexander held the candle in front of him, as if he were leading a solemn procession.

  At the end of the corridor, Alexander opened the door to the linen closet. “In here,” the boy whispered.

  Devon couldn’t help but smile. The entrance to the East Wing was just as he thought.

  “Look,” the boy was saying, holding his candle aloft so that its glow illuminated the back of the closet. Devon could see nothing that he hadn’t before. Alexander brought the candle closer. Finally, Devon could make out a faint rectangular shape in the plaster below the bottom shelf.

  “Watch,” Alexander instructed. The boy ran his hand along the floor of the closet, his fingers gripping a section of old wood. He pushed. For a second, nothing happened: then Devon heard a soft grinding sound, like old wood against stone. The rectangular shape began to retreat. Devon realized it was a trapdoor, a small panel that was now opening inward, exposing a deep blackness within. It was only about three feet by four, just large enough for a small person to wriggle through. From it, damp air struck Devon like a cold, musty breath.

  “See?” Alexander exclaimed. “A secret panel. Isn’t it cool?”

  “I don’t know if it’s safe to go in there, Alexander,” Devon cautioned.

  “I do all the time!” the boy protested. “What’s the matter—you afraid?”

  No, not afraid, but suddenly aware of his responsibility with an eight-year-old boy, as part of a new family he was still unsure of. Yet Devon’s curiosity, his quest for answers, overruled any misgivings he had about what Mrs. Crandall might do if she found out.

  Alexander handed Devon the candle and dropped down onto all fours. Within seconds he had crawled inside, like a skunk scuttling under a fen
ce. Devon took a deep breath and followed. The fit was tighter for him, but he made it.

  The narrow passage led between the walls of the house. On the other side, Devon found he could stand up. Alexander turned around to return the panel to its place. “So no one will see we’re in here,” he whispered.

  Ahead of them a small passageway, dimly illuminated by their candle, veered off sharply to their left. Alexander led the way, taking the candle back from Devon, its flickering light barely allowing them to see a few inches ahead. Several times Devon felt the sticky kiss of a cobweb against his face; he brushed at them uselessly, convinced a large spider was crawling along his back.

  At the end of the passageway, Alexander pushed at another door. It opened onto a large corridor, not unlike the one outside their bedrooms, with a similar Oriental rug that ran the length. But here everything was covered in a thick layer of dust: a heavy, bitter sediment that made Devon cough as soon as they entered

  “We’re in the East Wing!” Alexander proclaimed in triumph.

  The windows were mostly shuttered here, but enough daylight filtered through the slats to make their way a little easier. The wallpaper was old silk: a faded textured blue with a pattern of swans, Devon thought, although it was hard to discern what was actually etched beneath the dust. On the walls, old lamp fixtures that had not burned in decades hung side by side with the sagging wire of old picture hooks—the portraits of dead Muir ancestors removed to livelier parts of the house. A large stained glass window at the far end of the corridor depicted God casting Lucifer into hell.

  Through the open doors that led off the corridor, Devon peered into empty, shuttered rooms. Their footsteps echoed dully through the dust.

  Alexander was urging Devon to hurry up, beckoning him into one large room that once must have served as an upstairs parlor. A closed-off fireplace and shuttered bay windows attested to the fact that this had been more than a bedroom. Devon looked up: an old, broken chandelier still hung in the center of the room. For a second he imagined Emily Muir here, entertaining guests, laughing, the light of the chandelier reflecting on her delicate features.

  “In here,” Alexander called, crooking a finger at Devon to follow. They passed through an archway into a small anteroom and then through a small door into a third room, an inner chamber with no windows. “This is it,” Alexander announced. “This is my place.”

  Here the candlelight revealed remnants of the past: several bookcases filled with dusty old tomes, a rolltop desk with most of its drawers missing, and a broken mirror propped up against the wall. And here, suddenly, the heat came at Devon full force, causing him to turn away from its impact as if he’d just been slapped across the face.

  This is the place, Devon thought. The place I’ve been searching for.

  Why would the Muirs build an inner room? A place without windows? What secrets were kept here?

  “This was a library, I think,” Alexander said, and indeed, more books were piled on the floor. Suddenly there was a scampering sound: mice, Devon imagined.

  But no, not mice, he realized on second thought. Whatever was moving under the floorboards and behind the walls was far heavier and much faster than any mouse or rat. Once more Devon felt the heat pulsing around his face.

  “And look,” Alexander pointed out.

  A solitary portrait hung on the far side of the room, the dust on its face disturbed by the strokes of a child’s fingers.

  “Doesn’t it look like you?” Alexander asked. “I thought so the first time I saw you.”

  There was no doubt it did. The portrait was of a boy close to Devon’s age, dressed in the clothing of the 1930s or 1940s. Devon took a step closer to examine it, but Alexander had moved off with the candle, leaving the portrait in darkness.

  “Do you like this place?” the boy asked.

  He set the candle down on the rolltop desk. He looked up at Devon, the flickering flame illuminating his features.

  Devon tried to smile. “It’s very intriguing,” he admitted, already thinking he would come back here tonight with a flashlight and without the boy. He’d make sure to bring his phone so he could take pictures. “But maybe we shouldn’t stay much longer.”

  “We won’t,” Alexander said—and in that second, with the candlelight distorting the boy’s sweet childish face, Devon glimpsed the evil creature that lurked within. “But you will.”

  The candle suddenly went out, followed by the horrible sounds of footsteps running across the floor and then a door slamming.

  “Alexander!” Devon called after him, even as he heard an old key twisting in a lock.

  The darkness was complete. Now there was only the high, sweet voice of a demon child:

  “You’ll rot in there. They’ll never know where you went.”

  “Alexander!” Devon screamed.

  But he was gone. In his mind, Devon followed the boy out through the old parlor, into the corridor, down the secret passageway, out of the closet, down the hallway, and back into his room. Later, when Mrs. Crandall would ask where Devon was, Alexander would reply with expertly feigned innocence. “I don’t know, Aunt Amanda,” he would say. “Perhaps he’s gone for good.”

  For several moments, Devon did not think at all. He merely stood in the middle of the room, unable to move, immobilized by the darkness. But then he began to concentrate, first on his heartbeat, then on his breathing, and finally he turned to the place where it seemed the boy had left the candle.

  Or had he left it? Might he have snatched it from the table once he blew it out, condemning Devon here to total darkness?

  But for that much at least Devon could be grateful. After fumbling through the dark and finding the rolltop desk, he placed his hand around the candlestick and found the matches nearby. Striking one and lighting the wick, he breathed a long sigh of relief as the room flickered back into view.

  “You didn’t reckon on one thing, brat,” Devon said out loud, turning to face the door. “I have resources of my own when it comes to locked doors.”

  He concentrated. He willed the door to open, the way he’d flung open the doors on Rolfe’s car that first night. But the door to the room didn’t budge. Devon grunted and put his hands to his head and tried again. But he knew it was useless. The power came at first concentration, or it didn’t come at all. It only worked when it wanted to work. Devon could never predict it, except he knew it had never helped him win track meets or impress his friends. It just worked when he needed something really bad, like to fight off demons. But wasn’t this a situation when he really needed help? If it wasn’t, he didn’t know what was.

  Slowly a little fear began to gather in the back of his mind. What if I can’t get the door to open? What if I scream but no one hears me?

  I’ll die here, in the darkness.

  There was light for now, although the candle was short. If he needed to, Devon would snuff it out to conserve it. But he left it burning; for now, the light gave him some comfort.

  Surely Alexander would return. Devon settled himself against the wall. If I’m raving like a child, he thought, he will have won. If I remain calm, he will see that I do not frighten easily.

  But what if he meant his threat? What if he really was that disturbed? Or worse?

  What if Alexander Muir was in fact a demon in disguise? One had disguised itself as Dad once. Or what if—and this possibility felt more compelling—Alexander was being controlled by some demonic force?

  His eyes. His voice. Devon had recognized it from the moment he met the kid. There was more to little Alexander Muir than a troubled boy’s mischievous behavior.

  “You’ll rot in there. They’ll never know where you went.”

  “No,” Devon said out loud. Surely Mrs. Crandall—and Cecily—would know he wouldn’t just disappear. They’d come looking for him.

  He looked up then, toward the corners of the ceiling. Beady little eyes of bats, rose colored and cruel, stared down at him. He was fascinated by them, as he was that day in
the old corridor with Suze. He blinked, and they were gone.

  Devon stood up, the candle quivering in his hand. He needed to occupy his thoughts or else he’d go mad. Alexander would return. He had to. Devon carried the candle over to the old bookcase and lifted it so he could read the titles. He was stunned by what he saw there. Books on magic. Sorcery, to be exact. One title in particular appeared to glow along the binding. The Arcane Art of the Sorcery of the Nightwing.

  Devon’s hand trembled as he reached for the book. He could feel the surge of electricity through his body. He slid the book off of the shelf, opening it indiscriminately. With the candle he glanced down at the page and read a passage that seemed to pop out at him: “All power comes from good.”

  Hadn’t Dad always said the same?

  Devon replaced the book and looked at the next one. This was a much thicker tome, with ornate gold leaf on its binding. The Book of Enlightenment.

  Suddenly Devon was overcome with a sense of dizziness. He was forced to set the candle down on top of the bookcase and grasp a chair to support himself. Something was rushing through his brain. Words, sounds, pictures. He touched the spine of The Book of Enlightenment—

  He was surrounded by blue light.

  A man he didn’t know, a man with long white hair wearing a flowing purple robe, was speaking in a deep voice that echoed through the blue nothingness:

  “Of these enchanters, the most noble and feared have always been the Sorcerers of the Order of the Nightwing, who alone discovered the secret of how to open the Portals between this world and the one below. For nearly three thousand years, the Nightwing have jealously guarded the secret of the Portals, which, in common parlance, have come to be known as Hell Holes.”

  Devon staggered back a bit, breaking contact with The Book of Enlightenment. The blue light disappeared, and he was back in the darkness of the secret room. He found he had to catch his breath, so powerful had been the vision.