Spell Crafting 501

  The final classes have begun, and the only thing standing in Imara’s way is an ancient and deadly enemy... of her kitten.

  Imara’s life is going according to her plans. She has her boyfriend, her kitten, and is about to earn her degree in Magecraft and graduate. Once she has that degree, she has the right to request an application for a commercial magic license. It is the goal she has been working toward all along.

  A shadow begins to haunt her during the day and stalk her when she is away from the college. She doesn’t know what it wants, but it follows her with a purpose she can’t fathom until she finds the identity of her stalker.

  By the time she learns that it is Mr. E the stalker is after and not her, the trap has already closed.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Spell Crafting 501

  Copyright © 2018 by Viola Grace

  ISBN: 978-1-987969-48-1

  Smashwords Edition

  ©Cover art by Angela Waters

  All rights reserved. With the exception of review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the express permission of the publisher.

  Spell Crafting 501

  Published by Viola Grace

  Look for me online at violagrace.com.

  Spell Crafting 501

  The Hellkitten Chronicles

  By

  Viola Grace

  Chapter One

  Imara took inventory of the magical-items cupboard for the fifth time. She worked to get every herb, powder, and weird liquid committed to memory.

  No Mage has all their herbs committed to memory. You are going to burn your nose out. Mr. E was sitting on the counter amid the bottles and cleaning his paws. It wouldn’t be so odd, but he was wiping them with a tiny hanky that she didn’t remember giving to him.

  She put the bottles carefully back in the cupboard. “My nose is fine. I just want to be careful with my studies. I have to do half the work in class, so it is going to be difficult to do things with someone watching.”

  Yes. I can imagine. You do your best work with the dead. Why are you taking this course again?

  Imara looked over at him. “Short time, high credit.”

  Ah. Right. I saw the application for commercial magic in your room. Everything is filled out but the date of application.

  She made a face as she kept loading the cupboard. “Sue me for being positive. I am hoping that I don’t have to tear it up and go back to the college board for a full course load next semester.”

  I don’t want to stay around here any longer than I need to. What can I do to help?

  “Well, I have two days before the classes start, and each evening, I have tours of the local mage repositories with mage guides and members of the XIA. I hope I can tell them apart.” She smiled slightly. “They are delighted to have access to the spectres via their cooperation with the Mage Guild or the Death Keeper’s guild.”

  The mage guides? They are getting really advanced. He smirked. You do have much more of an affinity with the other Death Keepers than with mages. Those who work with the dead are rather easygoing.

  Imara closed the glass door and latched it. “That is because we are the conversational superstars of the night.”

  To be fair, you are competing with the dead.

  “I am not competing with the dead; I am competing with the sentient magic of the dead. There is a vast difference.” She wrinkled her nose and picked him up, tucking him up on her shoulder and walking down the hall toward the common space.

  Reegar was sitting and reading a tome that he had probably memorized, and Bara was sitting on the couch with her feet up, embroidering a sash.

  Imara went to the kitchen and got a cup of coffee.

  Bara called out, “Another late night coming up?”

  Imara walked out of the kitchen and over to the loveseat that she called her own. “Yeah.”

  Bara gave her a quirked look. “Is it worth it?”

  Imara sipped at her coffee and then replied, “It is. I am introducing people to a skill set and resource that has dwindled dramatically. Nine families that I have dealt with have now put spectres in their wills. It benefits us and their heirs.”

  “Don’t you feel weird selling services to the dead?”

  Imara sighed. “I am not selling anything. I just demonstrate how useful it would be if their children’s and grandchildren’s essences remain available for consultation.”

  Bara blinked. “I don’t see the purpose.”

  Imara leaned back. “I am primarily called on when there is an unresolved legal matter or an event regarding a property. Not everyone passes with a copy of their will in their hands, but the settings for a spectre can kick in automatically, and their mind can be consulted the next day.”

  Bara whistled. “That makes a lot of sense.”

  “Thank you. The repositories set the spectre stones in a larger obelisk, and that provides the power of projection for the consciousness.”

  Bara grinned. “Now I don’t have to take a tour.”

  Imara snorted. “You never had to. It is just like what I did for Reegar. He is powered up and able to interact as if he were still living.”

  “Aside from being confined to the hall.”

  Imara wrinkled her nose. “There are options for that, but the hall is acting as the obelisk. There are so many objects of power here that they are making his projection easy. I healed his fading spectre, and he is doing the rest.”

  Reegar snorted from his corner. “I can hear you, you know.”

  Bara laughed. “We know. It is definitely nice to actually see you now and not just feel you lurking about.”

  Reegar looked up with a smile on his dapper features. “I just wanted you to know that I was here and I was paying attention. No frolicking or odd behaviour in my home.”

  Bara grinned and returned her attention to her embroidery. “I know, and I had no intention of doing anything else other than studying.”

  Imara chuckled. “With a mind like yours, I am amazed that you aren’t entering the Mage Guild’s research and development department.”

  “Organized research isn’t for me. I much prefer to gain skill after skill and simply hoard them.” Bara looked up and winked.

  “I respect your choice and enjoy your talents.” She finished her coffee and checked the time.

  Reegar flicked a look at her. “Are you going to wait for Argus?”

  “No, he is picking me up for tomorrow’s tour. Tonight, it is the mage guides again. Different group and different memorial garden.” She got to her feet.

  Bara asked, “What is the difference between a repository and a memorial garden?”

  Imara smirked and headed for her room, yelling out, “The tax base.”

  She heard the snort as she walked up the stairs to her room, one hand absently holding on to Mr. E. It was time to get changed into her robes and get into her car for the hour’s drive to the small town near Redbird City. The highway was the easiest part of that night’s excursion. The mage guides she was meeting with were all under the age of ten. They were confident enough to ask questions and young enough to not have a grasp of the adult world. It made conversations with the spectres a little wearing. Keeping spectres from using foul language was sometimes an uphill battle.

  Imara settled her robes on and around Mr. E, and she smiled. She loved her job.

  After an hour of driving with the radio blasting and Mr. E singing along with the rock ballads that she found, she turned off the noise and pulled into the parking lot outside
of the Redbird City Garden of Spectral Retirement. Imara kept herself from smiling as she got out of her car, and Mr. E perched on her shoulder. That was a very grand way of saying this way to talking rocks.

  Imara hadn’t been to this facility before, so she made sure that Mr. E was tucked in before she walked to the welcome building.

  The first thing she saw was the flicker of a screen in the back corner of the room, and she investigated. The staffer was sitting in the corner and sleeping. Her chest was rising and falling slowly, so it was almost difficult deciding to wake her.

  Let me do it. Mr. E’s words were loud in her head.

  Imara shrugged and let him down, holding her hand out so he could simply walk down her arm. He hopped lightly to the desk and sat in front of the flickering screen.

  She was about to ask what he was going to do when he opened his little mouth and yowled loud enough to make the lights flicker.

  The woman screamed, tilted back, and thudded to the ground before she scrambled to her feet with her hair wild and her eyes white in her dark features.

  “What the hell was that?”

  Mr. E sat licking his paws like a normal kitten. Only Imara could hear his inner guffaws.

  “My familiar wished to wake you, miss. I am Master Imara. I will be leading the tour tonight.”

  The woman blinked. “That’s tonight?”

  “It is. I have confirmed with the mage guides. They will be here in half an hour. Just tell me which zones would have the most friendly spectres, please.” Imara smiled.

  “Uh... I don’t really know.” The woman straightened the chair and sat down. “I am just keeping the chair warm. The actual Death Keeper went to a concert in town and told me that nothing was happening tonight.”

  Imara winced. “Right. I am going to go for a quick tour. If the mage guides arrive, stand with your back straight, fold your hands in front of you like this.”

  She demonstrated, and the woman stood and mimicked her.

  “Excellent. Tell them that Master Imara will be here shortly and show them the video in the visitor’s centre. It is already primed for the visit.”

  The woman looked over, and she frowned. “That ass.”

  Imara grinned. “Yeah, he knew we were coming. What is your name, by the way?”

  “Connie. Thanks for being cool with this.”

  Imara winked. “Make sure that he gives you the share of the four hundred dollars that the guild is paying him for the tour.”

  Connie stared at her, and something strange happened. A flicker of magic ran across her skin. Imara blinked several times as the woman’s skin went granulated and then smoothed back into the medium brown of her normal tone.

  Imara paused and then said, “I am just going to check the gardens, looking for something that won’t curse in front of the kids.”

  Connie blinked. “They do that?”

  “They have all the bad and good habits of their human lives, without the soul. It can make for some exciting conversations.”

  Imara held her hand out, and Mr. E made a phenomenal leap from the desk to her bicep, and then, he curled around her neck once again.

  Connie looked like she didn’t know what to do, so she turned off her screen and was straightening items in the entry room when Imara went through the warded doorway and into the gardens.

  She let a short wave of spectral energy out and walked toward the bank of elder stones that she could feel in the distance.

  Imara walked along for a few minutes and found the spot that had a sign indicating that it was The Garden of Repose.

  She walked into the shadowed darkness, and she spoke, “Is there anyone here who wants to speak to a group of mage guides? I will be bringing the girls this way in a few minutes if you are willing to be polite and informative.”

  A few flickers of energy formed into spectres, so she powered them up.

  “What are you, miss?”

  The woman was wearing ancient robes, and her eyes were focusing on Imara.

  “I am a Death Keeper. I just happen to be very good at my job.”

  The woman smiled slightly. “I will speak to your young ladies.”

  “Who are you, Madam?”

  “Magus Elder Reetha Nakura. I passed over three hundred years ago.”

  “I am Master Imara Mirrin. Death Keeper and tour guide when necessary. I can also rejuvenate spectres. I have an affinity for the dead.”

  The woman bowed. “I will await your tour eagerly. How long will I remain visible to the living?”

  “How long do you wish to be? I can make you transparent for the time being and then introduce the girls to you as you solidify.”

  The elder quirked her lips. “That sounds like more fun than I have had in decades.”

  “How many others are here?” Imara could feel nine, but they were all very faint.

  “Seven. All masters like myself.”

  Imara kept her face emotionless. “Excellent. I look forward to bringing them here.”

  She withdrew the power she had donated to the elder and the others. She bowed to the empty space, and she walked out.

  She kept her shiver of dread until she was away from their sphere of influence.

  “Well, the kids don’t need that.”

  Mr. E shivered a little. “Do you think she recognized me?”

  “Someone in there did. There were nine signatures aside from the elder. She wanted me to bring them all out, and that means there were two people in there she didn’t want me to know about. I am going to a weak target, not a faded one.”

  She hunted around and found something suitable. An instructional mage who had died one hundred forty years ago, but she was the last of her line. No one visited. She was happy for the company and the promise of letting her magic drain into silence.

  With her willing participant in the demonstration charged and waiting, Imara returned to the welcome centre. It was time to lecture the little ones.

  Chapter Two

  Instead of little ones, a group of teenagers was there with a harried-looking guide leader and two adult women. Imara grinned. “Benny!”

  Benny Ganger came forward and shook Imara’s hand. “When I heard who was doing the tour, I had to come. This is my best buddy, Freddy. Freddy, this is Imara, the Death Keeper.”

  Freddy extended her hand, and when Imara took it, she read generations of suffering and torment embodied in the soul of the woman.

  Mr. E moved in a blur and sniffed at Freddy’s hand. Instead of growling at the taste of the demon magic, he rubbed his head against her knuckles while perching on Imara’s wrist.

  Hellhound. There was pity in his voice.

  Don’t you despise magic from the demon zone? she asked him softly.

  No, I despise demons and those who traffic with them. Hellhounds are mages bound to draw on the demon zone energy at the will of other mages. She’s a slave.

  Imara looked at Freddy’s face, but the other woman was exclaiming how cute Mr. E was.

  “He’s adorable!”

  Imara released Freddy’s hand and scooped up her familiar. “He really is. Would you like to hold him?”

  Freddy nearly snatched him away and proceeded to murmur to him and cuddle him.

  Imara ignored the black thoughts coming her way, and she turned to Benny. “So, you are just here for the tour?”

  “Yes, and to keep these ladies on track.” Benny jerked her head at the teens who were paying more attention to them than the video screen.

  “Well, in that case, we should start the show.” She beckoned, Mr. E squirmed free from Freddy’s kisses, and was back on her shoulder in a bound.

  Imara stepped toward the Guide Master, and she introduced herself to Sandy Dale. Once that was done, she turned to the back door, grabbed a staff and lantern before she offered a polite, “If you wish to speak to the dead, please follow me.”

  The teens scrambled up off the floor and were at her heels a moment later.

  She paused near th
e door to the gardens. “The doors here are warded. No spectres can pass through without the help of a Death Keeper.”

  She turned and addressed them, giving them the basics of what it meant to be a Death Keeper.

  A young woman put up her hand. “Isn’t it all the same guild?”

  Imara smiled. “No. Death Keepers answer to their own guild before the Mage Guild is allowed near them. It is a specialized position, and the Death Keepers can override a Mage Guild decision. There aren’t enough folk with a talent for death.”

  A young woman with blue and green stripes in her hair asked, “Why do we even need Death Keepers?”

  “We will figure that out tonight. Now, follow me and we will wake the spectres.”

  She fired up the staff and walked through the wards, waiting for her group to step through the glowing glyphs and join her on the other side.

  Imara stifled laughter as some rushed, some jumped, and a few closed their eyes and took one giant step. When Benny, Freddy, and Sandy were all on the correct side, Imara continued her lecture.

  “When a mage has prepared for their spectre to be generated, they are sent to the crystal at the moment of death. In that moment, their magic transfers instead of simply disappearing into the ether. A copy of what they know, how they know it, and all of their personal memories are placed in the crystal. That crystal is then taken and secured to an obelisk, statue, or headstone of the deceased’s choosing.”

  She led them to the recent portion of the memorial garden. “The spectres here are awake, conscious, and able to speak to me normally, and you, if I boost their situation a little.”

  “Why can you speak to them all the time?”

  “I am a Death Keeper. Speaking to the dead is what comes naturally.” She walked slowly to the nearest monuments, and she activated the spectres to full energy.

  The girls gasped as the spectres approached, but when they paused and looked at Imara, she inclined her head. “Thank you. These young ladies are mage guides, and I would like you to speak politely with them or not at all.”