Chapter 49

**Merianna**

“Oh me oh my, what do we have here?” I heard Noch muse. I blearily lifted my eyes from the taboo documents I had in my hands and blinked to refocus my vision. It had at least been another three hours since we started sifting through documents again. I felt like death warmed over but still mentally thanked our lucky stars that Hezerial was willing to help.

“What is it?” I asked with a yawn and stretched my arms over my head to pop my vertebrae.

“Hmmmm, it seems to be a document for converting souls into magic energy.” He hummed. “I didn’t think that something like this actually still existed. Many manuscripts of this kind were destroyed en masse even before the cataclysm because of its inhumanity.”

A shiver ran down my spine. “So if someone were to use that, the victim can kiss reincarnation and the afterlife goodbye?”

“Exactly.”

“That’s frightfully terrifying.” Thyrion grimaced.

“Tell me about it.” Noch muttered as he finished flipping through the document and moved on to the next.

I leaned back in my chair, trying to give my eyes a rest as I tried thinking of what exactly could be going through Dermon’s mind. “I wonder what the hell his goal is. Dermon has been relatively quiet for a long time hasn’t he?”

Thyrion reached over and started rubbing my shoulders which made me instantly melt. “Well,” he mused “you’re right, I haven’t noticed anything after all these years that could be linked back to him. It does feel right to lob him and Orbus in the same boat though. We’ll have to wait to hear back from Raska and Jasnine about that theory though.”

“It wouldn’t be a stretch to think that Dermon would have wiggled his way back into the Warlock hoards since the last time. They don’t tend to reincarnate like we do.” I mused happily.

“As we know the goal of the Warlocks was and still is, to bring their lost deity back to life, so to say.” Noch muttered while pointedly eyeing me.

My eyes lazily skimmed over the documents on the table until something caught my eye. I reached out and brought it closer for more examination. “So…if they are wanting to bring said deity that had essentially been ripped to pieces, back into one whole piece to be able to ‘live’ again…” I thought out loud. “Would something like that be able to be accomplished with a powerful summoning ritual of sorts?”

Noch seemed to pause with what he was studying and thoughtfully moved his attention over to me. He raised his eyebrow at what I was holding, so I handed it over without a word. Flipping through the pages, his thoughtful expression turned into an impressed one.

“Ah oh, if you’re impressed by something like that, then I assume that my train of thought wasn’t all too far fetched.” I groaned.

“Indeed Demon Spawn. What you just stumbled across could be one of the many clues we’re looking for.” Noch suddenly stopped flipping pages and glared darkly at the book.

“What?” I asked worriedly and Thyrion paused his loving attention to look over as well.

Noch silently flipped the book around so I could see it too. And right there where he held it open, were a few missing pages. The rips were neat and close enough to the backing of the spine that it wouldn’t be glaringly obvious something was missing, nor would it cause the book to fall apart.

“Wow, we actually found hard evidence.” I could barely believe what I was seeing.

“That is quite a step forward.” Thyrion added as he eyed the book warily.

Noch heaved a sigh. “Now the questions are, was this a part of what they used back in the caves way back then? Are they planning on using it again? Or is this just a nice to know piece of information.”

“I think we should treat this as something that they can definitely use on us again on a later date.” Thyrion offered.

“I think so too. Back then in the caves, whatever they had done definitely had an effect on me, and it wasn’t nice.” Muddled up as my memories were, I was remembering more and more of the time I had spent with everyone in the Order the more I spent time with Noch and Thyrion. And one of the things that had become clearer, was the mission where everyone from the Order and most of the Council were mobilized to raid the fanatic Warlock caves.

Noch grunted in agreement. “If I were him, I would try again what I had failed in doing the first time.”

Heaving a sigh I looked over the few documents we still needed to go through. “At least we’re almost done here. Let me know if you come across something that could work against a summoning. I’m not too keen on finding out what would happen to me if they were to succeed.”

Noch snorted. “I bet if anything like that were to happen again they might be the ones in trouble. If you snap now with everything you have at your disposal, you would be more than capable of ripping their souls apart and turning a few measly demons into wisps of dust.”

I felt like that was supposed to be a compliment, but I wasn’t too sure if I would be capable of that amount of destruction in my current life. The burning, crackling and temperamental energy of my aligned element was still there like it was back in the day, but it didn’t feel like it was influencing my mood as much as it used to back then. Calling me mellow this time around would probably be a safe bet.

“Well, just let me know regardless. I wouldn’t want to chance it after all.”

“Fear not My Lady. I shall protect you again as I had before. They won’t be allowed to succeed as long as I’m around you.” Hezerial said gently as he came to our table with only one more book.

Smiling my thanks I took it from him and glanced at the cover. If I had been sitting here as an ignorant mortal right now, I would have jumped out of my skin at the mere sight of it. If there was ever a Frankenstein creation book, this was probably what it would have looked like.

Various different skins were sewn and melted together to create the sturdy cover, making it look like it was a book that belonged to Tartarus. Uncleaned blood splatter and all.

“That is quite unique…” Thyrion said, peeking over my shoulder.

“Mmmm. Not something that feels like it would be a best selling novel if you asked me.” I muttered.

From what I remembered of pre-cataclysm books, if something like this was tossed together so haphazardly, it probably contained something that was highly illegal, made by someone that was on the run, or the person who made this had little time left with lots to share.

Probably.

Only one way to find out after all. Peeling back the cover I gave the first few pages a cursory skim. As I glanced through the pages I felt the frown on my face growing deeper with each flip of the crusty pages, until I came across another ripped page.

“Well now. I guess summoning wasn’t the only thing Dermon was interested in.” I muttered. Noch’s head shot up and he eyed the book I was holding dubiously.

I shrugged and flipped the book around so Noch could see what I had noticed. His eyes narrowed at the ripped pages. “What is that one about?” He asked.

“This book is about sacrifices. Sacrifice this and you’ll be able to summon that, kind of deal. Somewhat of an equivalent exchange catalog.” The mere thought of someone being sacrificed in order to summon Denaue a.k.a me, to anywhere gave me the absolute creeps.

Noch took a deep breath. “Not really anything comforting. Well, we’re practically done here. At least we managed to find a few answers of some sort. We know that whatever Dermon and his little demon are up to, has to do with Denaue, summoning her regardless of whether the Warlocks are in on it or not, and now also something to do with a sacrifice.”

“Maybe we’ll be able to figure out more once Orbus gets tracked down and we can figure out what’s going on with the Fae.” I mused.

“Oh right, come to think of it, I haven’t told you guys about what I heard from Fog yet, have I?” Thyrion asked.

“Fog got back already?” Noch asked incredulously.

“I chatted with him before I went to go get you guys snacks.” He shrugged.

“That was ages ago! You didn’t think that what Fog told you could have given us more hints as to what we were looking for?” Noch pouted.

“I think you would have used a conversation about what Fog found more as a distraction rather than motivation.” I muttered.

He raised an incredulous eyebrow. “And you wouldn’t have?”

“Of course I would have!” I shot back, then turned to Thyrion. “Why didn’t you mention this sooner?!”

Thyrion chuckled and poked my nose. “For exactly the reason you just mentioned. I didn’t want to distract you guys from what you were focusing on.”

“Well, now that we’re done, tell us. What did Fog find out?” Noch asked impatiently.

Thyrion frowned worriedly for a second. “Apparently when he went into the Fae realm, the energy in it felt off. He heard through the grapevine that some fae had gotten affected by a strange illness of sorts. Dark blemishes spread through fae that had left and re-entered the realm, it caused some of them to go mad, then disappear altogether while others managed to recover.” 

Both Noch and my eyebrows went up at this new information. A rot or blemish that affects one of the most magically pure creatures in existence? Now that was not something you heard about… ever.

“Did they know exactly where it originated from?” Noch asked.

Thyrion shook his head. “No, it happened unexpectedly, and it sounds like the fae that got affected probably didn’t go to the same areas in the human realm. It seems to be absolutely random. Fog managed to get a sun slab from one of his acquaintances. He was going to take a look at it as I left to come this way, hopefully he would have found something.”

“Wow, that’s so weird.” I muttered as I drummed my fingers over my lips.

“Oh right.” Thyrion leaned forward like he suddenly remembered something. “Do you think that fluctuations of demonic energy could probably play a part in something like this?” he asked Noch.

Noch frowned darkly, not liking the direction the theory had suddenly taken. “I don’t like the sound of that, but it won’t be impossible for the balance between certain realms to become unstable if one of them were up to something they shouldn’t be.”

“Do you think that energy from the demonic realm could be seeping out and affecting the space between the realms?” I asked seriously.

Noch nodded solemnly. “It’s not impossible for someone to be affected by energies of a different realm while simply stepping through the space between their realm and ours.”

I didn’t like that thought at all. Did the fae even notice the change when they simply went about their day and moved between the realms? Or did they only notice the blemishes when they arrived back into the Fae? Did they think that they merely had too much exposure to some iron in the human realm? It was scary to think that some of them were affected so badly that they went mad.

“Do we know how long this has been going on for?” I asked Thyrion.

“No, not really. Time flows differently between the Fae realm and ours, but hopefully Fog will be able to find some more information for us regarding that.” He answered.

Remembering those fae that attacked me not too long ago, I couldn’t help but think that they were probably one of those that got affected and then disappeared. “Do you guys also think that the fae that attacked me before were one of those that may have gotten affected by those blemishes and disappeared from the Fae Realm?”

I caught movement to my right and saw Hezerial looking thoughtful. “It wouldn’t be a stretch to think that My Lady. There was most certainly something extremely odd going on with those creatures. They clearly looked ill, but I still can’t imagine why they would want to attack you.”

Noch frowned deeply while Thyrion gave a frustrated huff.

“If the energy that was affecting them was demonic energy.” Noch mused. “And a certain someone stumbled across them while they were desperate for relief from the effects. It wouldn’t be too far-fetched to imagine that they could have been taken advantage of, and told to do something where in return, they would be healed.”

“I think you might have hit the nail on the head there, Noch.” Thyrion nodded solemnly. “It makes the most sense seeing as how I was almost in the same kind of situation. But if that were the case, I don’t think Orbus was in on it. When I saw him last he denied any involvement in that incident, and genuinely looked like he knew nothing about it. If he did have a hand in that, he would have just been shooting himself in the foot since his hold over Merianna was the only thing that was keeping me in line.”

“I wonder if Orbus and Dermon actually have anything to do with each other if that’s really the case.” I wasn’t quite sure if Orbus the Warlock and Dermon the enemy actually had anything to do with each other if their objectives were so different.

“Well, to me it wouldn’t be all too far-fetched. We already know how much of a traitor Dermon can be to get his way. For all we know he could be sitting in the background and manipulating Orbus like he did everyone else in the past.” Noch scoffed.

Yeah… he was probably right. I reached over and popped a sour worm into my mouth, chewing thoughtfully on the end. Just remembering how he threw all the warlocks under the bus in the caves once he got from them what he wanted still left a bad taste in my mouth. Not to mention, how he literally stabbed Junnie in the back right in front of us all. And she fully believed that he loved her.

A sudden boom reverberated through the basement. I whipped my head around to the entrance mid chew to see what the hell was going on. A straight-laced and severe looking man with blonde hair stood in the entrance looking like he was about to blow a gasket. Two younger but sharp looking witches flanked him on either side.