The Cursed Blood, стр. 70

did, even Manx who sat at his spot with his head between his paws. Fazool, who had come in mid-story and plopped himself into Gramps’ favorite squishy leather recliner seemed outwardly thoughtful. Tapping a perfectly manicured and ringed finger to his lips and fiddled with the singed dangly tassel on his nightcap, that had somehow survived and inexplicably remained on his head throughout the whole ordeal.

“This girl in your dream,” he waved the rest quite before they interjected. “She used the word tethered. Did she, specifically, say THAT word?” I nodded and the tapping of finger to lip increased as Fazool leapt up and started to pace.

“What is it?” Aunt Milly demanded hesitantly.

“Not sure yet,” Fazool shrugged as he fixed me with a piercingly serious, appraising look. “And she said she was punished for trying to help you, did she?” Again, I nodded, and he nodded as if this confirmed something. “So, she said she was your friend and all of this. How curious. I’m not sure I’d want her as my friend if that’s how those she likes are treated.” He giggled then went still and absolutely grey. “Haven’t gotten any packages recently, perhaps with any sweet treats in it?” Gramps and White Owl stared at one another and both looked sick to their stomachs.

“Oh, Gods, no…” Aunt Milly whipped about, normally neat and styled orangish red hair billowing about as she furiously put her hands on her hips and glared at the two sheepishly grey and speechless men who were staring at each other. Gramps accusingly and White Owl in horrified, wordless apology.

“Tell me you didn’t?” she hissed.

White Owl nodded slowly, and Gramps swallowed uncomfortably as if he was trying to down a rather large apple whole.

“As silly, idiotic and doltish as it may be,” Fazool too glared at the pair. “We may be unspeakably fortunate that they DID fall for it.” Aunt Milly rounded on him and he nodded grimly. “It seems our young lad has a mysterious friend determined to keep him alive by any means necessary, even as she’s forced to try to kill him.”

That made no sense to anyone who just stared blinkingly or blankly at the Halfling like he had gone mad. “No, I’ve not inhaled fumes of been addled daft.” He giggled. “Think about it. Had they not fallen for this like a pair of addle minded fools, this little Warlock girl, and yes, she’s obviously a Warlock, and a powerful one, too, wouldn’t have been able to warn him. And if she hadn’t… Well, we would all be dead at the moment, now wouldn’t we?”

Twisted as it was, he was right. He usually was, I’ve come to find. It was always wise to listen whenever the usually foppish, joke cracking, giddy, wine and fine food obsessed Halfling takes the effort to be serious. As he had a unique way of quickly seeing situations, and through things that tended to let him catch onto hidden truths and such most would miss or dismiss.

There are some things you need to know. Firstly, in regard to Warlocks, we may as well try to fend their power off with umbrellas for all the good our Darkling immunity will do us. As they aren’t really using magic, but tapping into something older, darker, and deeply feared.

Warlocks can summon and control things from the hellish realms outside of reality. Don’t ask me to explain it because Wizards have studied accounts of it for ages and couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Simply put, all that’s known is that Warlocks are dangerous, almost beyond comprehension. Which is why they tend to hunt them, which is about the only thing the Wizards agree on or will collaborate on.

One of them, the Eldest, known as Raj Ardrawan Penderdrake who resides in a hidden palace in Morocco, had ‘The Demon Eye’ (its proper name is all but unpronounceable, at least to me). It is a relic of the last Warlock to reach adulthood and plague the world. It literally glows a ghostly purple when a new one is born and actually wants to go to them.

It’s how the Wizards have hunted them all these years. They honestly had no idea what else it could do, at least until it was far too late, but that’s a story for another time. What needs to be known is that for some reason it hadn’t warned them this time and a Warlock had survived past infancy.

As to what had been done to me, it’s a dark bit of blood magic—outlawed and rarely even spoken of due to how vile it is. It’s a blood pact, a bond so total and binding that only an extraordinary and uniquely powerful Fey, like a Wizard or Warlock, could ever hope to pull it off.

Evidently, it was one of Eric Von Clampett’s favorite little tricks from his bag of horrors used to control, bend, manipulate, and break almost anyone to his will. His presence become as addictive as heroin. At times he used it to horrific effect to make bloody examples of those who displeased him.

It connects two beings so completely that their life forces were all but tied to one another and nothing could be hidden ever from the bonded, no matter the distance between them.

Neigh onto unbreakable, the curse was said to be a terrible thing, especially if it was somehow magically severed, leaving the surviving souls shattered, changed, and unstable. Most of the Sundered—the proper term of a survivor of such a curse—ended their own lives within a year of the blood links breaking. Many among the Feyish sympathetically considered this a tragic mercy.

In short, a blood bonding (or curse as it’s better known) is one of the most reviled crimes in all of Feydom. The only thing (most consider) worse is the soul bonding which is essentially a second, double dose of the elixir of blood. And which must be taken willingly by a blood bonded pair, which is usually lethal to