The next few days were a bit of a blur for Sarah. She tried her best to remember the wisdom her grandmother had imparted to her in the attic. Unfortunately, the burning desire inside of her to seek revenge was just too strong to ignore. The more she thought about the weapon her family safeguarded, the more she wanted to find it and use it. For the first time in her life, she was okay with violence if it meant making the vampires pay for what they had done to James.
Her aunt seemed to notice that something was wrong and kept trying to make comforting small talk with her, often over lunch or dinner. Since quitting her job at the bookstore, Sarah had been staying at home. After the excursion to the attic and the revelation of the family secret, she had decided to stop moping about in her room. She had to move forward somehow, James wouldn't want her to waste her life away laying in bed. To occupy her time, she helped out around the house with various chores. The hope was that mundane activities could distract her but alas, they could not.
Despite her aunt's attempts to make her feel better and her grandmother's attempts to comfort her, she couldn't shake the feeling that she needed to do something. Once more she waited until everyone was asleep. She pulled out a small backpack and tossed a flashlight, a book of matches, a couple of safety pins, a lighter, and a piece of chalk into it. The essentials she thought she would need to find this weapon. A plan had formed in her mind during dinner, something that had been inspired by what her grandmother had shared and what Johnathan Chesterwood had written in the Book of Shadows.
If the blood of her family was the key to unlocking the weapon then her blood could find it. She had modified the tracking spell she had used to locate James before his death. It was a simple spell that relied on contagion magic. Contagion magic, as aunt Janine had once taught her, revolved around using something that was connected to something else to affect it. In theory, since her family's blood sealed the weapon away, then her blood was connected directly to the enchantment and to its location.
After realizing this and modifying the tracking spell, Sarah had steeled her will and made her decision. Nothing was said to her grandmother or to her aunt, she knew that they would both stop her and she couldn't bear to see the disappointed look in her grandmother's eyes again. She didn't technically need to sneak out, she was an adult after all, but sneaking out meant less questions and less lies. Lying had never been her strong suit.
She slung the backpack over her shoulders, opened her window, and climbed down the massive oak tree that lived alongside the house. Her sneakers hit the grass with a soft thud and she quickly took off, putting distance between herself and the house.
After walking a few blocks away she stopped and fished out one of the safety pins. Blood welled up from the tip of her finger as she softly recited the modified spell;
"Blood of my blood, heed my call and reveal yourself."
She focused on visualizing what she imagined the location would look like. For some reason she pictured the weapon being locked away in a massive bank vault with heavy security. She was aware of how absurd that was but without having seen the location of the weapon, she didn't have a frame of reference to draw from. Her ancestor Johnathan, had unfortunately not left a map behind which made sense given everything grandma had told her.
The spell worked nonetheless as a small drop of her blood floated into the air and hovered at eye level. It slowly took off and she followed behind it, stuffing the safety pin into one of her jean pockets. No one paid any mind to her, Tyler was a different animal at night and most people would rather mind their own business than get involved. Besides, very few people walked the streets in Tyler at night, the ones who did were often up to no good. She did her best to avoid eye contact but no one bothered her. Perhaps the aura of magic that was emanating from her was acting as a type of ward, warning people away. That thought comforted her as she traveled to the unknown location of the weapon.
***
After walking for nearly an hour, ending up in a graveyard on the edge of the city was not what she had in mind. The wind blew softly through the old cemetery, rustling the trees and the grass that hadn't been cut in a long time. It was as if this place had been forgotten about. There was no gate, just a run down chain link fence and what looked suspiciously like hog marks in the ground. That made her a bit nervous, hogs could be a problem if she ran into them.
Her flashlight beam cut through the summer night darkness and lit up rows upon rows of tombstones. Most were very old, weathered and faded. More than a few were cracked or falling apart. The dead had been buried and forgotten while time had moved on. The thought bothered her for some reason.
Pushing aside her mournful thoughts she took a deep breath and a look of determination appeared on her face. She was going to do this, she had to do this. The blood bobbed up and down, the spell nudging her onwards. The spell had no sense of intelligence but its goal was clear, to lead her to the location. Off she walked, following overgrown sidewalks and trails that were almost invisible due to the heavy layers of grass and flowers that flooded the area.
The trails twisted through the cemetery and the sounds of the night greeted her ears. Insects sang all around her, serenading the night with their secret language. Somewhere in the distance was an owl, its own call mixing with the sounds of crickets, cicadas, and june bugs. If she had been on a dangerous mission she would have found this very peaceful. As it stood however, she had no time to waste enjoying the ambience of nature. Fog was already rolling in and the faster she could get the weapon and leave, the better off she would feel.
The blood drop stopped at the back of the cemetery. The flashlight beam illuminated a tall mausoleum that was made of marble. Its once white surface was now covered in dirt and thick vines of ivy grew all over it, like tentacles springing from the earth to wrap the structure in its embrace. The door was unadorned except for a small carving of Elder Futhark runes that sat in the center;
ᛞᛖᚨᛏᚺ
She had never been one for ancient scripts other than the witches alphabet so deciphering this was out of the question. Frowning, she pulled out a small piece of paper and a pen. She quickly drew a large pentagram in the center and then wrote in Theban script around the edges of the paper;
"Heed my blood and open the way"
Fishing out the safety pin she had used earlier, she pricked a different finger and smeared her blood on the pentagram. When she was satisfied with the talisman it was placed on the door and held in place by her hand. It took only a few seconds before smoke started to rise from the edges of it. Pulling her hand away quickly she watched in silence as the paper burst into flames, the ashes floating away into the darkness. With a loud groan and the sound of stone scraping against stone, the door slowly opened and revealed a large set of steps that led down, deeper into the mausoleum.
Her flashlight shone the way as she descended while cobwebs assaulted her face. Years of neglect had turned this place into a spider's paradise. The steps led down, farther down then she would have thought possible. The air grew colder and the darkness felt thicker, out of curiosity she opened her third eye and tried to sense the weapon that awaited below.
Darkness, the smell of blood, and intense rage filled her mind's eye. She steadied herself with one hand on the cold stone wall and took several breaths, quickly shutting her third eye. The magical aura she had sensed nearly drove her to madness. Her knees shook in fear and it took everything she had to keep going, relying on the LED light to continue guiding the way. The overwhelming power of the weapon was unthinkable. She understood now why the vampires feared it and why it was sealed away.
She tried to imagine what kind of magical weapon would be strong enough to emit such a power. Battle axes, swords, daggers, and even spears all floated through her thoughts, would she even be strong enough to wield the weapon when she found it? She was athletic and had spent most of her high school days on the track team but weight lifting had never been on the agenda for her.
The steps came to a stop and the light illuminated a massive underground chamber. Grey pillars and arches greeted her eyes but it wasn't the strangest thing in the room. Aside from the insanely huge size of this place, the strangest thing was what lay in the center of it. Wrapped tightly in chains that practically hummed with magic, was a stone coffin.
Had her family really hidden a weapon in a coffin? That was a pretty odd thing to do and made absolutely no sense to her. Surely there would have been better containers for the weapon she had sensed earlier. Drawing closer to the coffin she saw a seal engraved on the top of it. The chains lay around it, thick and made of cold steel. A normal person would have had to bring some pretty serious tools with them to cut through those chains.
Staring hard at the seal she did her best to translate the runes that were engraved around it. These were different from the runes that were carved on the door and they almost looked like an older form of the same Theban script she often used when writing out spells. Perhaps that alphabet had evolved over the last two hundred years, she reasoned to herself in silence.
From what she could make out only the blood offered by a Chesterwood witch could open the coffin. Sighing heavily at the thought of poking another finger, she pulled out the trusty old safety pin and pricked another finger. She drew a line in blood over the seal and took a few steps back, unsure of what to expect.
***
Darkness, no dreams, just endless darkness. It was an odd sensation, like waking up after passing out during a blood drive. The smell of blood, iron with sweet notes, flooded the darkness. How strange, why did the darkness have a scent? A single eye opened, the iris a shade of crimson that held a slitted pupil, like a cat eye. As the eye stared at the stone above it, the owner struggled to recall where he was and why he was there. Memories flood into his mind. His birth, the bloodshed, the face of his maker, and the betrayal. Her face was the brightest memory of them all. He felt a longing sensation in his chest as his mind fixated on the image of the woman that he had once loved, the same woman responsible for his being here.
His other eye opened and he heard the soft clanging of metal. Someone had freed him from his prison. He grinned in the darkness as the magic that kept him asleep and imprisoned was lifted. Eager to leave this cage he punched the stone lid of the coffin which exploded from the force of the impact.
***
Sarah watched as the chains that had wrapped around the coffin suddenly snapped and fell to the floor with a loud clanging noise. She was caught off guard by the sudden explosion that came from that same coffin. Diving to the ground, she covered her head with her hands, trying to avoid being hit by the sudden cloud of debris. Stone, dust, and dirt flew in almost every direction and the remaining pieces of the lid slammed onto the ground with a thunderous boom.
Her eyes lifted slowly upwards as she saw a figure standing in the cloud. A single pair of red eyes glowed from within it and understanding dawned within her. The coffin was the holder of the weapon because the weapon was a person. Dread filled her and took the air from her lungs, what had she just released?