Maggie gingerly set her foot on the first stair, cringing at the creak that came from the ancient wood. The skittering from the darkness below stopped, and Maggie looked back at Dahlia, eyes wide. Maggie knew they needed to go farther into the basement. Their rune would be quickly calculated, using estimates at best, and the closer they could get to the ghoul, the better.
“Go,” Dahlia mouthed. “Fast.”
Maggie went as quickly as she could and Dahlia followed, dropping into a crouch when she got to the bottom stair. She started drawing the rune across the last wooden plank, and Maggie kept her back to Dahlia, listening for sounds other than the chalk against wood. The basement was nearly pitch black except for the cast-off glow of a streetlight that was coming through the remaining shards of the cellar door that led to the sidewalk. The ghoul must have crashed through it, shredding the shoddy ward rune as it went. Turning on another light would have alerted the ghoul to their presence, startling it out of its hunger and making it aware of the threat that Maggie and Dahlia posed, so Dahlia drew in the darkness.
A gurgling sound came from the center aisle, followed by a loud thump. As Maggie’s eyes adjusted, she could make out the disaster the ghoul had caused. One of the metal shelves had been knocked over and was leaning against the shelf next to it. Boxes of dried pasta, cans of tomato sauce, beans, and jalapeños, and piles of still-wrapped loaves of bread were scattered all over the floor. A stack of empty kegs had been knocked over, too.
And, there, in the far corner of the basement, was the ghoul. It was crouched over a shattered jar of peperoncini, the smell of sour brine mingling with the foul odor of the ghoul as it brought the pickled peppers to its mouth in slow, uncoordinated movements. It slurped them down, not even bothering to chew. It seemed distracted enough by the peppers, until Dahlia dragged the chalk across the wood grain one more time and the ghoul paused.
“Hurry,” Maggie whispered. She watched in horror as the ghoul extended from its crouch, unfurling in small, jerky movements until it was fully upright. Fuck. At its full height, the ghoul was monstrous, the top of its head nearly scraping the unfinished ceiling of the basement. When it turned, slow and uncoordinated, its hands dragged across the floor, oblivious to the shards of glass slicing through its leathery skin. Then it faced Maggie, its milky-white eyes boring into her, and let out a low growl. Her stomach dropped and her heart beat so hard and fast in her chest that it was all she could hear. She couldn’t let the ghoul near Dahlia and the rune.
Maggie took a step forward and reached for a jar of maraschino cherries on the shelf to her left. The ghoul tracked her hands, jerking its head in an unsettling movement, its mouth falling open to reveal a row of worn-down, rotted teeth. Maggie threw the jar. It arced through the air and down the aisle, coming into contact with the steel edge of the shelf and shattering, spilling cherries and sweet red juice all over the floor. The ghoul fell onto the syrup, all limbs and snarls, dragging its too-long tongue across the dirt. Maggie was going to be sick.
“How much longer?” she asked, bending into a crouch, but never taking her eyes off the ghoul.
“Just one more minute.”
Maggie hoped the cherry juice was enough to sate the creature. As she watched it, she practiced the incantation in her head. It would take nearly eight minutes to complete the long incantation. Eight minutes. How long would a jar of maraschino cherries distract a ghoul? That was certainly never a question Maggie thought she would have to ask herself.
Dahlia reached up and grabbed Maggie’s arms, pulling her down to the rune. “It’s done,” Dahlia whispered, and they both placed their palms on the chalk lines, energy already pulsing through their fingertips, waiting for them to activate the magic with the incantation. As Maggie spoke the clear, sharp words, each one like a dagger in the basement’s stale air, the ghoul dragged its attention away from the cherries and back toward them. Maggie didn’t stop, and soon Dahlia’s voice followed, repeating each line of the incantation after Maggie to increase its power.
For a breath, the ghoul stared, tilting its head to the side in an approximation of curiosity. Maggie felt its lifeless white eyes on her like a brand, but she could not speed up the incantation for fear she would get something wrong. The ghoul moved toward them, slow at first. It stopped to push a jar of pickles off the shelf, but when the jar didn’t break, it kept coming. Maggie’s voice wavered as it drew closer and closer, and she wondered if it could feel the spell starting to drag on its skin. As the ghoul closed the space between them, Dahlia’s chanting became more high-pitched, and they both trembled.
As the binds of the spell grew tighter, the ghoul’s movements became frantic and faster, and then suddenly it was upon them,all stale breath and too-sweet maraschino and rotting flesh. It let out a strangled snarl and lunged, and Maggie lifted the hand that was not pressed into the wood grain and channeling the rune to protect herself. The ghoul’s spindly, knobby fingers closed around her forearm, and searing pain shot through Maggie’s skin, but she didn’t stop to scream, even as one built in her throat. Instead, she said the final word of the incantation, clear as a bell. The ghoul’s grip tightened on her arm, and its rotting mouth was nearly upon her as Dahlia repeated the last line of the spell.
Maggie lifted her other hand off the rune as it glowed, ready to push the ghoul off her, but there was no need. A blinding light filled the cellar, and there was a sudden release of energy as the ghoul dissolved, a look of anguish in its milky eyes.
Chapter Eight
Maggie’s arm was fine. Sure, she hadn’t slept in days, because the skin was aching and tight across her forearm. The ghoul’s handprint was seared into her skin, but the nurse in the infirmary promised it would disappear in a few days as the wound healed. She had given her a medicated cream, and it was helping, but the handprint was red and raw. Still, if you asked Maggie, she was just fine.
Dean Clearwater had already given her an earful on Monday morning about putting herself in danger. He had been waiting at her office, actually pacing in front of the door with nervous energy.
“Why didn’t you call a wardsmith?” he demanded instead of starting withhelloorgood morning. It was nice, actually, to have someone be so worried about her. She hadn’t bothered to tell her parents about her run-in with the ghoul during their weekly phone call, concerned she would worry them or, worse, that they wouldn’t care at all.
“We did,” she explained. “But Rodrigo already had one ghoul attack last week, and the wardsmith didn’t bother to banish it. They just put up some shoddy ward that clearly didn’t work.”
Dean Clearwater sighed. “You and Dr. Hawberry are verytalented, but you put yourselves in unnecessary danger. After a night out, I presume?”
Maggie’s face flushed.Thatwasn’t really his business. She bit her lip, thinking of the dean’s warnings about keeping Taliesin happy, about the precarious position she suddenly found herself in at Hawthorn. She didn’t want to anger the dean more, but after Friday night, she couldn’t quite stop herself from asking, “Clearly this pall is dangerous. That ghoul never would have been in Rodrigo’s basement if it weren’t for the pall’s magic feeding it and wearing on his wards. Why hasn’t the pall been dissipated yet?”
The dean rubbed one of his fluffy white eyebrows. “Dr. Taliesin has taken the lead on developing the dissipation spell, and he is working diligently on it.” Maggie crossed her arms, avoiding the aching burn, and raised her eyebrows. Dean Clearwater sighed.
She wanted to yell that Taliesin was putting an entire town in danger, but Maggie managed to keep her cool. “What about Galloway?”
“This incident has made it clear that we need to fortify wards beyond the campus boundary. I’ve already sent a notification out to the local wardsmith office, who will take care of the spellwork to strengthen the wards around town.” Maggie opened her mouth to say something, but Dean Clearwater interrupted her. “I’ll make sure it’s good work. Not the subpar warding done at the bar.”
It wasn’t enough, but it wassomething. After Maggie promised him she wouldn’t put herself in danger or allow Dahlia toconfront any more ghouls, the dean seemed satisfied, giving her a small pat on the arm before returning to the admin building.
The rest of the week, Maggie went through the motions, avoiding Taliesin as much as she could. If he had heard about the ghoul in Rodrigo’s basement, he certainly hadn’t bothered to see if she was as fine as she claimed. The few times Maggie had seen him over the week he’d looked as drawn and weary as she felt. Even her students were subdued. She didn’t know if it was their approaching finals, the gloomy weather that had stuck around all week, or the effects of the pall seeping down through the floors, but there was none of the usual excitement that should have accompanied the end of a semester, buoyed by warm weather and sunny skies.
On Friday afternoon, after a particularly glum session of Advanced Translation, she was relieved when she returned to her office to find it empty. If Taliesin had been in their shared space that morning, there was no evidence of it.
Maggie turned on some music, kept the lights low, and began working on the spells she was preparing for her final exams. It wasn’t long before she was interrupted by a knock on her door. A student with a backpack slung over one shoulder stood waiting, looking around her and into the office. “Is Dr. T here?”
“He’s not. Did you have a meeting with him?”
“No, but these are his posted office hours.”
