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Chapter 251
The next two days passed in a bit of a blur for Leesa. Thursday she had her two exams, which she did okay, but not great on. Stefan’s visit had kept her up later than she had planned, making her a bit tired and sluggish during the first test, especially. She had crashed early that night and slept in late on Friday, but one night of extra sleep was not enough to offset a whole week of stress and studying.
Cali was out celebrating the end of midterms with Andy, so Leesa was just spending the evening hanging out alone in her room, reading and watching television. She thought about going to the library to practice her magic, but even the four block walk seemed like too much effort tonight. She didn’t think one more day without practice was going to hurt her meager progress.
She was watching a rerun of Two and a Half Men—one of the good ones before Charlie Sheen experienced his epic meltdown—when someone knocked at her door. Pushing herself up off th
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Leesa's Advent Chapter 252
The night was another cold one, with a cool, damp wind blowing out of the northwest. As the cold air streamed across Leesa’s cheeks, she thought that spring sure seemed to be taking its time arriving. She didn’t know if this was normal for Connecticut—after all, this was her first New England spring. One of her classmates had said something about March “coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb,” so she guessed this year’s weather was probably not all that unusual, not if there was an old adage about it.The cold did not bother her at all tonight—not when she had Rave holding her hand. Even with him obeying her strict instructions to keep his magical inner fire completely in check, she could still feel his natural heat flowing through her hand and into her body, warming her as they walked.They had gone barely half a block from the dorm when Rave suddenly stopped.“What’s the matter?” Leesa asked
Leesa's Advent Chapter 253
For a moment, she could not see anything while her eyes adjusted to the darkness. When her sight returned, she found Rave staring at her, an amused smile on his face.“I would say that was just a bit brighter than anything you created at my house,” he said.Leesa did not need Rave to tell her that. “Yeah, for sure,” she said, staring down at her hand almost in disbelief. She wondered if her ankle weights analogy was indeed coming true, or if perhaps this had merely been pent up magical energy bursting out after so many weeks of being held in check. There was only one way to find out.“Illuminati verdus,” she said again, this time picturing a light above her hand that was about the brightness of the ceiling light in her room.The glow that floated above her palm was softer this time, but it still cast enough illumination to brighten the ground for maybe ten feet in each direction.“Follow me, please,”
Leesa's Advent Chapter 254
Earlier that same day, BSI agents Smith, Jones and Rome were enjoying a hot breakfast of eggs, sausage and pancakes in an old mom-and-pop eatery across the street from their downtown Middletown motel. The men sat on one side of the worn blue vinyl booth with Rome across from them. The food was surprisingly decent and the coffee was very good. In the middle of lifting a forkful of sausage to her mouth, Rome suddenly froze.Both men immediately stopped eating and looked at her sharply.“What is it?” Smith asked.Rome lowered her fork to her plate. Her eyes narrowed as she slowly moved her head from side to side. Her eyes were only partially focused—she did not really seem to be looking at anything.“Something has shifted,” she said after moment. She held up her hand, forestalling any further questions from her companions.Smith and Jones watched her silently. Concentration turned her already severe features into a sharp
Leesa's Advent Chapter 255
Leesa knew she was probably going to have to get comfortable with Jenna at some point—and now Dominic’s request was giving her a reason to try. “Okay. Should we meet back at school? At my dorm? Or the library?” “No, I have a better place. It will be safer, and it’s closer to where we must go.” “Okay. Where?” “Along Route 66, half a mile west of where we buried the black waziri.” The choice surprised Leesa. She guessed that Dominic wanted Jenna’s help in permanently getting rid of whatever remained of the black wizards. “Rent a car,” Dominic continued, “so you can drive there.” “I’m with Rave right now,” Leesa said. “I can have him carry me.” “No, I want a car, so we can all leave quickly once we are done.” Leesa knew that leaving quickly meant there would be danger involved in whatever Dominic was going to do. “I’ll have Rave meet us there, then. Is that okay?” “Of course. I do not foresee any re
Leesa's Advent Chapter 256
As Leesa predicted, her ride in Rave’s arms was all too brief, seemingly over almost before it had even begun. She told Rave to put her down at least fifty feet from the hidden gravesite—far enough, she hoped, to be safe from any lingering danger from the black magic. Dominic had done a good job concealing the spot beneath which the black waziri were buried. She could not tell exactly where the remains of the evil wizards rested, but the condition of some of the trees gave her a pretty good idea of the general location. As spring warmed the land, green buds and new leaves were beginning to sprout from the branches of most of the trees, but there was a small group whose branches remained as barren looking as in the dead of winter—the result, she was certain, of the black magic seeping through the soil into their roots. She wondered if any of those trees would ever bloom again, or if the evil magic had killed them. Using the bare trees as her marker, she made sure sh
Leesa's Advent Chapter 257
“Okay,” Leesa said. “Tomorrow’s Sunday, and I suppose I can miss a day or two of classes after that.” She looked at Rave and smiled. “That is, if Rave doesn’t mind having me hang around.”Rave grinned and took Leesa’s hand. “I think I can probably put up with you for a couple of days, at least.”“Okay, that’s settled, then,” Dominic said. “Let’s get started. The sooner we get this done, the better.”He strode toward the burial spot, stopping two paces away from a grave that was invisible to everyone but him. To the rest of them, the soil in front of him looked identical to the surrounding ground, but to the wizard there might as well have been a neon sign pointing to the grave, so foul were the magical vibrations he sensed beneath the dirt. Leesa, Rave and Jenna followed him, making sure to remain a few steps behind. Dral and Bain veered off to the left and righ
Leesa's Advent Chapter 258
BSI agents Smith, Jones and Rome gathered around a marble headstone in one of the Middletown’s cemeteries, the one closest to the Weston College campus. Beneath the marker, the sod had not yet completely grown back over the recently resealed grave, leaving narrow seams of dark brown dirt visible in the otherwise green grass.After returning from their drive across the river, they had decided to renew their investigation in the place where they had started it—at the graves of the three bodies that had been reanimated into the zombies who had attacked the girls dormitory. They hoped the dissipation of the strange spell that had been blanketing the entire area would allow Rome to sense traces of magic she might have missed the first time around.The afternoon shadows cast by the still mostly bare branches of the few trees scattered around the graveyard were beginning to lengthen as the sun began its slow descent in the western sky. The nearest tree spread a da
Leesa's Advent Chapter 259
Smith and Jones both stopped, surprised by the news.“I didn’t know there were any of that kind left,” Smith said. “I thought they had all been wiped out by their black brethren.”“Apparently not,” Rome said. She continued on toward the road, stopping on the shoulder. “He got into a vehicle here. I could try to follow, but I would have to walk. We would never catch up to him.”“There’s no sense trying to follow,” Smith said, gazing down the road. He turned back to Rome. “Let’s go back to the pit and see what you can learn.”Rome nodded. “I agree.”They returned to the empty hole. The two men again kept their distance, giving Rome space to work. She spent almost fifteen minutes circling the excavation, sniffing the air, fingering the dirt, even jumping down into the six-foot deep pit and testing the air and the dirt below the surface. When she was f
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