Page 35 of Luca’s Magic Embrace

Luca smiled to himself, thinking that the woman was going to be the death of him, and what a sweet death it would be.

After getting dressed in jean shorts and a pink tank top, Samantha walked into the kitchen with a spring in her step. Her cell phone buzzed while she was lacing up her sneakers. She glanced at the message. “Luca! Someone accessed the coven’s database. I’m goin’ into your laptop,” she yelled up the stairs.

Luca ran down the steps, and sat next to Samantha as she opened up her program. She typed furiously.

“Ilsbeth went in this morning. Yes! Gotcha.” She brought up the coven’s website and quickly entered Ilsbeth’s ID and password, pressed enter and waited. “Okay, baby. Here we go. We’re in! Now let’s see how we can search. Looks like they have things categorized. We’ve got witchcraft by country. We’ve got witchcraft by modern types, Wicca, Stregheria…yadda, yadda, yadda. Okay, I see spell casting, ingredients, necromancy. Ew…so not ever doing that. Here’s book of shadows, demonology, ceremonial magick, scrying, shamanism. Come on, there’s got to be something here.” She kept scrolling down, hoping there’d be a category for the Hematilly Periapt. “Come to mama! Yes. Talismans. It’s an amulet. Does that sound right?” she questioned Luca.

“Yes, that should be it. A talisman usually guards against evil, but considering we’ve got no idea what it does, let’s give it a try.”

“There must be thousands of these things, but I’ll give it to the sisters, they have each one detailed: what it’s made of, purpose, who created it, how to make one. Looks like some of these are blank. They must still be in the process of creating this database. Oh my God, Luca. Here it is, the Hematilly Periapt. I can’t read this. Is this Latin? What is this?” The description was written in a foreign language:

A potens pythonissam, Maria Voltaire, in septimodecimo saeculo ad certate pestilentia de lamia. Et facta periapt Hematite ex Graeco sanguinem. In actu periapt est proxime duo digitis per unum inch in figura lacrima gutta. Ita dominus periapt oportet esse in magica persuasione potest etiam actiones lamia voluerint. In ordine ad pythonissam ad eu in periapt, requirit gutta intentum lamia. Semel occurrit, in lamia erit sub veneficas imperium vsque mortem. Eam scriptor current location est ignotum.

Luca read the description and translated. “It’s Latin. So basically it says that the periapt was created by a powerful witch. Her name was Maria Voltaire. She made it in the seventeenth century to combat vampires, presumably during the great mass hysteria over vampires during that time. Anyway, it says that the periapt is made of the mineral hematite. The word, hematite is derived from the Greek word for blood. Then it describes it; it says the actual periapt is approximately two inches by one inch, in the shape of a tear drop. The owner of such a periapt must be a witch, warlock or mage. Here we go, here’s the crux of it. The periapt can control the actions of any vampire. But in order for the witch to activate the stone, it requires a drop of blood from the intended vampire and then the vampire shall be under the witch’s control as long as the witch keeps it on her person. It lists its current location as unknown.” Running through the scenarios in his head, Luca’s eyes narrowed in anger.

“Goddammit, now we know why the hell everyone seems to want it. Imagine if a witch got the amulet and the blood of a vampire. Like my blood, for example. Fuck.” He slammed his fist down on the counter, remembering what Kade and Sydney had told him about the needles all over the church where they’d found him. Perhaps someone had taken his blood for a different reason than they thought.

“What’s wrong?” Samantha watched Luca pace, visibly agitated.

“What’s wrong is that when we were attacked and I was taken, there were needles all over the floor. It’s a fairly good guess that someone has my blood. If the same person who took my blood gets the periapt, they could control me, according to what we just read,” he said, piqued.

“Okay, maybe it’s true, maybe it isn’t. We’ll get it back. We’ll destroy it,” Samantha promised. Hoped.

“What I can’t figure out is why another vampire would want it? How does he even know about it? According to this notation, only a witch can use it.” He dragged his fingers through his hair.

“I don’t know, Luca. But we’ll get to it first and then we’ll get rid of it. If we can’t destroy it, we’ll take it out into the sea, and dispose of it there. We can do this.” She didn’t want to admit it to Luca but she was scared too. She prayed that she’d left a clue to its whereabouts.

“Well, thank God you took it from Asgear. And now that we know what it does, we know why someone wants it. We’d better get going to find out what’s at the Maid of Orleans. I sure as hell hope this leads us to the amulet. We also now need to find out who took my blood.” Luca would be damned before he let anyone control his actions. He knew better than anyone that he was a lethal killing machine when he needed to be. And so did the vampire who was trying to get the periapt. Maybe that vampire was working with a witch? He couldn’t focus on the myriad scenarios right now. The only thing that was important was locating the Hematilly Periapt, and he hoped the Maid of Orleans would be his savior.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The afternoon sunlight glinted off the shiny golden metal. There stood Joan of Arc with her armor and steed in Orleans. Proudly displayed atop a large stone base, she sat surrounded by landscaping and pavement. Tourists busily shopped on both sides of the wedged streets, oblivious to her history or potential.

“Well, I’m not sure what I was doing over here. It’s a couple of blocks from the club. I don’t think I could’ve escaped to this statue on my way there. Maybe I came here on my way out of the club?” Samantha estimated.

“Maybe you did. And maybe Asgear lived around here and that’s why you came this way. Maybe you stopped here first before you planted the clue at the club? There’s a lot of vegetation in and around the statue. I brought some tools with me. They’re in the back seat. I’ll grab the clippers and hand shovel just in case we need them. Sydney knows we’re coming here today, so the NOLA PD are expecting folks to be digging around it.” Luca got out of the SUV, opened the trunk and picked up his toolbox.

Samantha was out of the car and across the street ahead of him. She should have worn jeans, not shorts, she thought to herself. Bushes and bugs. Just great. Stepping into the brush, she began to look for something, anything that would lead them to the location of the periapt.

“I wouldn’t have had a lot of time. Whatever I did, it had to be fast. Asgear would’ve seen me run over here across the street. It’s gotta be in or around the brush, maybe over near the cannons.” She broke through the branches, searching around near the ornamental artillery that sat in the shrubbery.

Instead of jumping directly into the brush, Luca examined it for evidence of damage such as broken branches or torn off leaves. As he rounded the statue to the front, he noticed the landscaping was not grown as high in one of the corners. Reaching down over the embankment, he pulled off a leaf that had been slightly ripped. Looking up, he silently thanked the saint. With caution, he climbed up into the bushes. Something was off with the ground near the concrete barrier which held the landscaping. Luca stomped his foot down on the dirt. Hollow?

“Samantha, over here.” Luca knelt down and began pushing aside dirt and rocks until he saw black. He rapped his knuckles on the hard surface. Metal. “Now, what’s this? It could be a sewer lid, but I don’t know. It looks more like a door of some kind.”

Samantha trudged over, reaching the spot Luca was clearing. Something small bounced off her feet, catching her eyes. She knelt down and picked it up. A rock? No, the dark metal covered in dirt was perfectly round.

“Hey Luca, look at this.” Rubbing the object, she examined her prize. “What is it? It almost looks like a golf ball.” She placed it into Luca’s dusty hands.

“It feels smooth, but look at its color; it seems to be made out of pewter.” Brushing off the crusted earth, he held it up to the sunlight. “There’s an inscription. Something I’ve never seen before. Maybe an ancient language? Possibly Sanskrit. Now what does this do? That’s the question.” He rolled the small globe in his hands and pocketed it. He shrugged, continuing to clear the ground. “Well, whatever it does, I have a feeling we’re about to find out soon. Ah, what do we have here?”

Luca returned to his original task, fully exposing the black metal trapdoor that had been hidden underneath the boscage. Slipping his fingers around a small loop handle, he pulled up. Dust and dank air bellowed upward. He coughed.

Samantha carefully leaned over, taking a peek at the dingy cavity. She was full of questions, nervously anticipating that they would need to descend into it. “What the hell? There’s a ladder on the side here. Where does this go? Hey wait, New Orleans doesn’t have tunnels, does it? Don’t they have a high water table? Even the cemeteries are built above ground because of it.” As she was talking through the feasibility of the tunnel, she remembered the underground prison Asgear had created. “Magic? Maybe he used magic to keep the water out, but how’s it possible it’s still here?”

“Not sure. It hasn’t rained at all over the past two weeks. Anyhow, no use worrying about how it got here. Here’s a flashlight. You ready to go in?” he raised an eyebrow at her; a corner of his mouth lifted in a slight grin. He dug out a stake and a few other items from his tool bag and pocketed them.

“As ready as I’ll ever be. But I swear, I’m going to freak out if I see any giant city rats in there. I hear y’all got rats the size of cats down here.” She shivered at the thought of running into one of the furry little beasts.