Prohibited Magic is the third book in the Grimoire Society of Dark Acts series. Episode 8 is up on my Patreon—it’s pay-what-you-like—and it’ll go up later on Kindle Vella.
Episode 8: Humphrey delivers his oracular message to Finnegan, but it’s less helpful and more complicated than he’d hoped.
In my Patreon post, you’ll always get exclusive content.
What Prohibited Magic is about:
With Grimoire Society of Dark Acts’s magic book and crystal ball in the hands of the parasitic Ruin Rats, Carmichael’s decision to take the Book of Blessings and infiltrate the magical gang has left Dark Acts magically crippled. Gertrude is trapped in Grimoire Assassins’s magical realm; only the never-before-seen Grimoire of Blood can save her. Dark Acts and its allies split up to stop the worsening imbalance in the Magic Societal Universe, an unprecedented state with unfathomable consequences.
Episode 8: The First Clue
HUMPHREY
Humphrey burst through the door into Grimoire Assassins’s house, immediately drawing Patrick from the sitting room. Humphrey leaned against the hall wall and panted with his hand over his chest—his heart didn’t hurt but it raced wildly. He forced out, “Finnegan.”
Patrick eyed him warily before nodding, then went into the parlor, seeming unbothered by Humphrey’s urgency. Seconds later, Finnegan and Nigel rushed to Humphrey’s side, and Patrick slowly sauntered back out.
“What’s happened, old man?” Finnegan asked, putting a hand on Humphrey’s back. “Are you all right?”
Humphrey swallowed hard and took deep breaths to slow his panting. “I saw the symbols as I was coming back here. A vision too.”
“Without your crystal ball?” Nigel asked incredulously.
“We need a paper and pen,” Finnegan said to both Patrick and Nigel.
Patrick shrugged and said in his thick Irish accent that Humphrey had a hard time deciphering, “None in the sittin’ room, I can tell yeh that much.”
“I must hurry, before they fade,” Humphrey insisted. What if he forgot something or wrote the symbols incorrectly because it was taking too long for him to pass them on?
“Draw them with your finger on the wall,” Nigel suggested. “I imagine Luther is in no mood to help us find anything in his home, at least not quickly enough.”
“Yeh got that right,” Patrick said. “Foul mood he’s in.”
Humphrey turned to the hall wall and pictured the symbols as clearly as he could; they were already starting to fade. Using his index finger, he drew them on the wall for Finnegan, who stared intently at it.
“Try it again, I don’t follow,” he said.
Cursing himself internally for his memory not being clear enough, Humphrey drew again what he was mostly sure he saw.
Patrick elbowed Nigel, who winced, and whispered loudly, “What’s he drawin’? Looks like a buncha sticks and circles.”
“Symbols shown to him in a vision by his oracle predecessors,” Nigel explained. When Patrick squinted at him as if trying to understand a foreign language—Irish being his mother tongue—Nigel rephrased, “The oracles who came before him.”
“One more time, old man,” Finnegan said to Humphrey. “I’m reading it, but it just isn’t making sense to me.” Humphrey began drawing them once more.
Patrick frowned at Nigel. “Yeh sayin’ he sees these things in his head from dead people?”
“It’s part of his form of magic,” Nigel confirmed patiently, nodding. “Think of it as the spiritual resurrection of those who die, but it isn’t God they go home to. They stay here on Earth to help us instead.”
“Seven blessings…” Patrick said in something between awe and fear.
Enjoyed this excerpt? Please join my Patreon to continue the story—it’s pay-what-you-like, and Patreon gets all episodes first before any other platform, plus exclusive details no one else will ever know about!
© Christie Stratos 2023