he was barely in his twenties.
“It did work,” he whispered with wonder, bringing his fingers to his face to touch the healthy, taut flesh no longer ravaged by the passage of time and the use of corrosive magicks.
He smiled a perfect, healthy smile and stepped back to admire his youthful body.
“It worked!” he yelled, pointing at his magnificent reflection. It was then that he remembered the others…the cabal. If it had worked for him, then…
He bolted toward the door, remembering his nudity only as his strong, healthy hands closed on the crystal knob. He went to his wardrobe and removed a silk dressing gown, marveling at the sensation of the material on his rejuvenated flesh.
Then he dashed to the door and threw it open, tying the belt around his waist as he stepped out into the hall.
“It worked!” he bellowed once again with a laugh as he proceeded down the darkened hallway toward the stairs.
It was there that he discovered the first of his golems. It was one of his earlier, less-human-appearing designs, lying on the stairs on its stomach, as if it had fallen while ascending and was unable to rise.
Still barefooted, Deacon started down the steps past the prone form, noticing the circular burn mark in the center of its back. His mind raced. He quickened his pace to the lobby, where more of his creations lay, limbs akimbo, their artificial lives stolen from them.
Deacon immediately thought of his wife and son. “Veronica!” he cried, stepping over a fallen golem. “Teddy!”
The large house was eerily still as he rushed through the many rooms, finding more of his inhuman servants struck down by some destructive magickal force.
Were we attacked by the forces we plan to confront with our newly acquired life? he wondered as he passed through the kitchen and headed down another winding set of stairs toward his study.
“Veronica!” he called out again, moving down the corridor to the heavy wooden door at its end.
The door was ajar, something he never would have allowed, but before he could consider it, he heard the cry of his son.
“Teddy,” Deacon called out, pushing open the door and storming into the study.
Where he froze, stunned by the sight before him.
Teddy was struggling in the arms of Angus Heath, while the other members of the cabal pored through his belongings.
“Ah, you’re awake,” a far-younger-appearing Stearns said from where he stood beside a file cabinet, one of its drawers wide open to expose all the secrets contained within.
“What is the meaning of…,” Deacon began, but never finished.
Stearns moved like quicksilver, his hand extended, a spell of violence on his lips. A bolt of magickal energy shot out from his fingertips, striking Deacon square in the chest, sending him across the length of room, where he smashed into a bookcase filled with scientific journals and fell to the floor.
“Do you understand the meaning now?” Stearns asked, removing a handful of files from the cabinet drawer and sliding it closed. “Or would you like another example?”
Deacon was flat on his belly, his entire body numb. As he fought to stand, he tilted his head to one side, catching sight of a body on the floor behind the great expanse of his desk. It was his wife, crumpled on her side, eyes wide in obvious death.
“Veronica!” he cried out.
He managed to get to his hands and knees, crawling toward her body.
“I wouldn’t waste too much emotion on that one, Konrad,” Stearns said, coming to sit on the corner of the desk. “She was all too happy to show us your study.” He hefted the files he had removed from the cabinet, then tossed them on the desktop.
Deacon reached his wife, gently pulling her limp body into his arms. “What…what have you done?”
“Isn’t it obvious, man?” Stearns asked. “I struck her down.”
The other members of the cabal laughed.
“Daddy!” Teddy cried out. “They hurt Mommy!”
“Evidently, she had second thoughts once we began our search,” Stearns said. “She tried to stop us.” He laughed. “But I wasn’t about to leave until I got what I came for.”
“What do you want?” Deacon asked, looking up from Veronica’s body cradled in his arms. “All you had to do was ask me and-”
“I want it all, Konrad,” Stearns said. He waved his hands. “Everything you’ve done…everything responsible for this.”
He slid from the desk to show off his rejuvenated form.
“This was something, sir,” Stearns sneered. “Something to be truly proud of. You actually did it. You made me…” He looked quickly about the room at the others. “You made us strong again…stronger than we’ve ever been.”
Deacon could feel the anger at his core…the rage starting to grow.
“You killed my wife,” he said, his voice rising.
“I did,” Stearns said. “And I’m going to kill you, too, and take everything that belongs to you.”
“I’ll kill you first,” Deacon cried out, his own spell of destruction leaving his lips as he raised his hands and unleashed pure magickal force from his fingertips.
“You’ll try,” Stearns responded casually, erecting a shield of his own magickal force to deflect the attack. The blast went wild, blowing a burning hole in a nearby wall.
Deacon released his wife’s corpse, scrambling to his feet as his child cried out, “Daddy! Daddy!”
He wanted to go to his child, but he had to save himself first.
Stearns was unstoppable. Fiery blasts of arcane force rained down on Deacon. He did his best to shield himself, but the cabal leader had been made too strong, and each blow made it more difficult for Deacon to concentrate.
Deacon lay crumpled in a smoldering heap on the floor of his study. He could hear Stearns approaching, the fall of his shoes on the litter-strewn floor, and he prepared himself. He could not lose; everything that he was, everything he had done, depended on it.
The sound of the sorcerer calling forth a spell that would end his life flowed through the air, and Deacon sprang up, unleashing a blast of supernatural power summoned from the very core of his being. He watched as Stearns was engulfed in preternatural force, then turned his attention to the other members of the cabal.
“How dare you?” Deacon roared, enraged by the cabal’s betrayal.
Spells of violence started to fly; they were all so much stronger now. Deacon locked his eyes on his son as Angus Heath dragged the boy about the room, using his small body as a shield. The little boy twitched and writhed as magickal bolts of arcane energy struck him.
“No!” Deacon cried out in horror, throwing all caution to the wind as he hurled himself across the study.
Heath tried to strike him down, but the spell just missed its mark, nicking Deacon’s shoulder as he grabbed for his son. The three of them fell to the floor in a thrashing heap.
“Pig!” Deacon screamed, his fist landing heavily on Heath’s ruddy face, drawing a spray of blood. He punched again and again, the urge to reduce this vile creature’s face to so much pulp bringing him nearly to the brink of madness.
But then he heard the sound of his son calling his name, barely audible through his rage. He let Heath drop to the floor and turned to take his son into his arms.
“Teddy,” Deacon said, looking into the boy’s eyes, seeing that they had already begun to glaze. The magick was already going to work on him, like a powerful poison coursing through his young veins. It had been cast to kill Deacon; he could only imagine what it was doing to his child.
He searched his mind for spells-something, anything-that could stop it. Some were even more dangerous than what the child was experiencing, but what choice did he have?
Deacon leaned in close to the dying boy, lovingly stroking his cheek, and he began to utter the ancient words of a spell that might save his dwindling life…
But Deacon’s enemies would not have it.
