Curselock

Chapter 30: Sigil

Jude didn’t release his grip until Glenny stopped struggling, and even then he was cautious. He laid the unconscious young man on the couch, making sure to prop his head up with a pillow. Meanwhile, Boor and Alkin looked horrified. Lady Onryo on the other hand watched with mystique.

“Sigil Sickness I assume,” she asked no one in particular.

Leland, forcing himself not to throw up, nodded. “Do you have a copy of Brix’s Guide to Defending Magic here?”

The Lady snorted. “Of course, one moment.”

Leland had already moved on, “Boor, I’m going to need some chalk.”

The butler nodded and left the room.

“Okay, Jude—”

“Can someone explain what is going on!” Alkin yelped.

“Glenny is dying,” Jude said frankly.

“Not yet, I can fix him,” Leland said, turning back to the Legacy of Berserkers. “Jude, if he wakes up, make sure he doesn’t stay awake. He’s going to fight it whether he wants to or not.”

Jude nodded, clearing a spot in the center of the study. Lady Onryo returned with a thick bound book, one covered in layers upon layers of dust and cobwebs.

“Hasn’t been all that useful,” she said, handing the tome to Leland.

He nodded, flipping through the pages after checking the table of contents. He stopped on a page filled with a singular detailed runic circle. He groaned, it was worse than he remembered. Boor returned with the chalk and Leland began sketching the circle into the floorboards.

Lady Onryo watched with scrutinizing perfection, calling out Leland’s failed lines or telling him to deepen the chalk in particular areas. At some point she fell to her knees and helped as well. When they were finished, Glenny was just rousing.

Jude punched him in the jaw, sending him back to the void. Everyone looked at him.

“What? You said to keep him unconscious.”

Leland was too nauseous to care.

“I can be the one to break the sigil,” Lady Onryo said. “I have more than enough mental strength.”

Giving her a small smile, Leland said, “Thanks for the offer, but Glenny is my friend. I wouldn’t feel right if I wasn’t the one to do it.”

“Fine, but if something goes wrong, I’ll step in.”

“Thank you. Jude, can you put him in the circle?”

Jude and Boor worked together, moving the skinny young man into the circle of chalk. As soon as they backed off, Glenny’s eyes shot open.

Red light poured from his irises, deepening trickster shadows and elongating the breaths of those present. Railroad spikes formed and pushed from behind everyone’s eye sockets, pressure built within their heads. Alkin fell over from the sudden mental attack, only catching himself on a nearby chair.

“Don’t look Alkin!” Lady Onryo yelled, signaling to Boor to escort the young Master out of the study. “Whenever you are ready Leland!”

Suddenly books and papers took to the air, flying around the room with a mighty gust of wind. A howl like a house being ripped from its foundation roared through the windows and curtain, breaking glass and tearing fibers.

Jude tried to knock Glenny out once again but failed to take a single step. An eye had opened below him, one with grasping hands of influence that kept him bound to his mortal coil. He yelled with silent direction, his words failing to breach the deafening bellows.

Leland had reacted on instinct, finding his grimoire already in hand and open to the correct curse. His palm slammed into the page, sparking a violet halo into life. Magic and mana pooled around his heart and head as he flipped back a page. With his own lifeforce lighting the spark and completing the spell, he yelled the powerword.

“Slow!”

The curse disappeared into the vacuum of the study before finding Glenny like a beacon in the dead of night. For a moment they were connected.

The world shifted back to darkness with a beat of their heart. They were one of the Sightless, their eyes crusted over in red energy and corrupt poison. They saw nothing other than what the being hidden within Glenny’s eyes wanted. They were trapped, they were depressed, they were angry. Their mind twisted and warped, changing into something beyond devotion and prayer.

Leland saw it, the Sightless King.

It was only a freckle, a tiny hateful being of sizeless authority. Nothing more than a wicked idea formed through the worst emotions the world had to offer. It had contaminated those who wished to bring it back into the spotlight, it had polluted those who wished it only love. It tried to do the same for Leland, in the end.

But Leland was only viewing it. He was not hosting it.

The study came back into view along with Glenny and the bound Jude. Leland pressed against the being hidden within the sigil, forcing it to submit into the nothingness that it was. The chalk flared into weaponization, burning with pure white fire. Flames sought the source of agony, growing across the floorboards with a hasted surge.

Glenny lit like a bonfire, his sluggish thrashing suddenly coming to an end.

“Don’t let up now, Leland!” Lady Onryo yelled into his ear. She placed a hand on his shoulder, adding her strength to his own. “The fight starts now!”

Together they pushed the sigil’s container, flooding it with mental zeal. The container bulged, the red specs within Glenny’s irises swelling like droplets of rain gathering on a window.

Sweaty and drained, Leland suddenly tasted blood. His eyes wobbled, but the hand on his shoulder squeezed tighter and tighter. He kept up with the barrage, eventually feeling the sigils pop.

The white flames instantly winked from existence as flying books and paper took to gravity. Harsh thuds sounded throughout the study as things finally came to a rest – Leland being one such thing.

He fell to his side, crushing his nearly recovered arm and causing a bolt of electricity to blaze through his nerves. Despite the pain, Leland stayed awake. He pushed himself towards Glenny, finding Jude already crouched over him.

Jude pulled at Glenny’s eyelids, staring into wide emerald irises.

“See any specs of red?” Leland asked.

“Just green.”

“Good… good…”

Leland allowed himself a slow blink, finding Glenny and Jude missing when he came back around. With momentary panic, he scanned the room finding them both sitting up and chatting on the couch. It was then he realized he himself was on a couch covered in a warm blanket.

“Ah, he’s awake,” Jude said.

“How are you feeling?” Glenny asked. “Jude gave me your ring of regeneration, I can give it back if you need it.”

A cough escaped Leland’s dry lips. “Are you alright?”

“Insides and eyes burn. Skin feels like it's sunburnt.”

“You keep it then,” Leland sat up, finding a circle of burnt wood in the middle of the study. “Was that us?”

“’Was that us,’ he asked. Classic,” Jude laughed.

“Where are the others?”

“Well. Alkin is probably still asleep. Boor said he passed out before he could fully get out of the room. Boor is probably with him. Lady Onryo is at a meeting with the guard Captains and city Mayor.”

Leland nodded, leaning back and closing his eyes. “Sigils sssssuuuuck.”

“Did you…” Glenny’s voice faltered.

“See it?” Leland supplied. “Yes. That thing is no Lord, not even a king.”

“It’s vile.” Glenny shivered. “It whispered things… It wanted me to do stuff. I didn’t even realize it was there. I just… I-I thought everything was perfectly fine.”

Leland nodded along. “I know. I felt it as well. I felt you as well. A-are you okay? Like with everything that’s happened since arriving at Liontrunk, I mean.”

Glenny took a long minute to answer. “I don’t think so. I feel so… so… numb to it all.”

“Is there anything we can do? When we were connected, I felt like I was drowning—”

“Just- just drop it please.”

“One step at a time,” Jude said. “I found counting to ten to help immensely.”

Glenny raised an eyebrow. “Like in your head?”

Jude went to respond but a knock at the mansion’s front door stopped them. A few seconds later, Boor appeared in a pristine tailored suit.

“Did one of you three order a barrel of beer?” he asked.

“Oh that was me,” Leland answered. “Do I need to sign for it?”

The Huntress listened to the conversation inside the House Onryo estate via the chimney within the study. She had moved much closer than initially planned when a lightshow of crimson red and deep purple clashed within the mansion’s windows. Even from her vantage point several streets over she could hear the horrid howling wind.

It wasn’t until the bright white flames that she realized just what was going on inside the house.

She had heard the guard talking of sigils but without confirming such things for herself, she didn’t believe it. Now, now she believed. Oh she believed alright, just like she now actually believed the Sightless Cult was in the city.

She had shrugged at the time, thinking that it was more likely a wannabe copycat group – not the real thing. Oh how she berated herself for being wrong. It was the boys, she declared, their odd decisions and behavior had gotten to her.

She almost laughed at the thought. The Huntress was well accustomed to chasing murderous Witches. She had long found her natural talent for thinking like a criminal. She had long learned her knack and paved her path through life making the most of it.

Who’d have thought that three boys would make her second guess her instincts, plain as day evidence, and herself.

Once confirming that the one named Glenny and the other, Leland, were fine, the Huntress took to the streets thinking over the conversation she eavesdropped on.

They were connected, she replayed in her head. What the hell does that mean? Some sort of blood ritual? Maybe a binding spell?

She groaned, finding the sewer entrance Glenny had frozen hours ago. A bow appeared in her left hand while a yellow spark appeared in her right. She stared at the sigil, finding its contours carved across the walls and floor.

Again she berated herself. She’d never have found this on her own. Well, that wasn’t quite true. She’d have followed the drunkard and reached the sewers as well, but she wouldn’t have been affected by the sigil. The Sightless King would have hidden itself well, allowing her to investigate the entrance without interference.

But a helpless young rogue? Now that was prime pickings.

With a flash of yellow, the sigil was scrubbed from this world.