Raven smiled a thin-lipped smile as she surveyed her handiwork. Fifteen gemstones floated in midair, connected by lines of force that were visible to a sorceress' eyes only. She had spent almost a full week making this matrix, a finely tuned instrument, so delicately in balance that any magical energy at all would shift it's energy flows and, by that, give away it's existence and location.

So sensitive was this matrix, that it could even pick up the energy inside of wards, and a ward was a spell specifically designed to hold in all energy and make it undetectable. Raven was one of the few sorceresses with the talent to tune a matrix this finely, a skill that had taken two centuries to master.

One thing, only one thing, was left to do; the matrix needed to be keyed. It needed to be touched by sympathetic magic, that means, it needed to be touched by something that had belonged to the quarry, or by a part of the quarry.

Raven smiled again, a cold smile that showed no sign of mirth. Raven was an avaricious woman, seeking to gain wealth, mostly by taking it from others by force or guile. In magical politics, she was a ruthless climber, aiming to supplant the leader of the Council eventually.

She opened the small box in which she had placed the hairs she had found at Alyssa's house. Hairs that just had to come from the assassin. She placed the hairs in a bowl that was floating underneath the centerpiece of the matrix, a huge, beautiful ruby.

Raven felt the resonance of the matrix changing as it readjusted it's energy flows to conform to the pattern of magic found in those hairs.

Raven placed her hands on the ruby and her mind dove into the matrix, aligning itself with it's forces and taking control of the flows of energy within it. Her mind tuned the matrix to begin her search.

Sixty-four

“Alyssa! Young lady, you come here this instant!” I called out.

Alyssa stopped fumbling with the door knob and toddled over to the living room table. She looked at me with her big eyes and I couldn't help but smile.

I said, “Here, play with your crayons. Color something in,” and pushed a coloring book across the table.

Alyssa opened the book to a page that was already decorated with a mess of lines in various colors, gripped a crayon and started pulling it back and forth across the pages, not at all respecting the lines of the parrot that was printed as an outline on the page.

I heard a key in the lock and felt the wards go down as Stacy opened the door and came inside. She pushed the door shut, failing to notice that the latch had not fully engaged and the wards had not come on. I only had eyes for her and also didn't notice the lack of magical protection around us.

She crossed the room to squat down next to the sofa I was lying on. I looked at her and she moved closer and into a brief, but passionate kiss.

At the back of my mind, I felt an unfamiliar sensation, a presence that I had never sensed before. Malice seemed to radiate from it and it was getting stronger. It felt like it was trying to enter my mind, pushing and probing, seeking for a way past my mental shields.

I reached for the tendril, as if to scratch an itch, intending to push it away from me, but something unexpected happened, something I had no control over. I reached for it, grasped it, and started to pull energy from it.

Power filled me as I drew the magic from the tendril. In an instant, I saw the tremendous source of energy that was contained in the floating gemstones I saw at the other end of the connection, and I saw the woman holding the ruby. I also saw her shocked and incredulous expression as she totally lost control of the matrix she had built.

A torrent of energy poured into me from those stones as they, one by one, fell to the ground, drained of their magic. The woman had let go and backed up against a wall, staring with an expression of dread at her disintegrating work. I completely absorbed the flow of energy until I could hold no more; I felt so bloated that I was almost nauseous, so I pushed the excess energy back into the link to the stones.

The images vanished as the link came apart and I was left tremendously charged with magical energy, and also with a need for Stacy, a hunger that I could no longer deny. I got up, pulling her to her feet and almost physically dragged her to the bedroom.

Sixty-five

Raven stood, her back against the wall, fighting within her mind to hold on to her life energy, which was being sucked dry by the matrix and the woman beyond it.

After many hours of seeking, she had suddenly and unexpectedly made a connection. She had probed to find out who she had connected with, and where in the physical world the person she had found was.

Her quarry had turned the tables on her, grasped her magical probe and held it fast, using it as a conduit to draw energy from her matrix.

Raven was aware of what was happening, she had seen this happen once before. 'Charissa!', she thought, as panic took over, 'Charissa was like that.'

Frantically, she worked her diminishing store of magical energy to create a shield for her mind, knowing full well that she would be sucked dry and die without protection.

So there was another. Centuries after the cataclysmic events that had nearly torn earth's secret magic society apart, there was another one. Another one like Charissa.

How Charissa came to be was unknown, she had never divulged what process could twist a sorceress into the equivalent of a magical bloodsucker, a vampire feeding on the energy of other sorceresses. One like the one she sensed at the other end of this link.

Raven calmed down a bit as her protections took hold, her mind no longer being drained to the point of death, and sidled along the wall towards the door.

It was then that the ruby flared up with a sudden burst of energy, which Raven was at a loss to explain. The stone glowed brightly for a split second, leaving en energy imprint on Raven's inner eye. This is when Raven noticed the thin black line neatly bisecting the energy field.

Raven opened her mouth to scream, but the ruby exploded before she could make a sound. Thousands of crystalline fragments sped outward, piercing Raven's body and carrying droplets of her blood with them, embedding them deep within the wall. Raven slumped down, her open eyes unseeing. On the wall, a reddish tint remained, showing the outline of her body.

Sixty-six

Our lovemaking had been different than the last times. I was the aggressor, bent on pushing passion to it's highest peaks. I was driven, insatiable, not stopping until Stacy begged, “Please, love, stop. I can't stand any more!”

There she lay, bathed in sweat on sheets that were dark with wetness, her eyes nearly closed in the afterglow of passion. The wild energy in myself had subsided a little, and a glow surrounded Stacy, one like I had never seen on her before.

A glow like the one I sensed around people with magic.

Weaker and unstructured, it was still the same energy. My energy. It seemed like I had transferred energy into Stacy, imbued her with magical force. I looked into Stacy's eyes, seeing the bliss if the afterglow, feeling my love pour out of my heart for her, and laid down next to her, holding her tenderly and covering her face with little kisses.

I whispered, “I love you,” as we both drifted off to sleep.

Outside, Alyssa was busy with her crayons and coloring book, blissfully unaware of what we had done in the bedroom.

End of part sixteen