The Missing Page

It was only natural for Rayne to want what she could not have. Her mentor had always told her that it was her "character flaw"; but still, neither her common sense nor her mentor's scolding voice could be heard over the calling of the black book on the top shelf, second from the end.

"I've been more than patient with that old crone," Rayne muttered under her breath. The cracked voice of Old Lady Burnswick, Rayne's mentor in the Craft, could be heard perfectly in the back of Rayne's mind: "My home is a treasure trove of magic, my dear, and I am its keeper. However, I am getting along in years, and before I breathe my last, I must designate a new keeper."

"I've stayed here for five years, and what have I learned?" Rayne glared around the magical abode of Agatha Burnswick, the wondrous contraptions and ancient gismos that had once enchanted her as a small child now stood dust-covered, their intriguing magics gone from them.

Rayne gave a beckoning whistle to a snoring hobgoblin on a tiny stool in a dark, dusty corner, a large mallet lay next to him. The gray creature jumped from his chair, snatching his mallet and raising it in expectation over a sizeable mousehole.

"Farns!" Rayne tapped her foot on the floor impatiently. The hobgoblin stumbled to a salute, knocking himself in the face with his mallet. Rayne sighed heavily and shook her head in defeat.

"Y-yes, Miss Rayne, sir...ma'am!" Farns tripped over his words, his eyes wide and trembling, "Did I...miss the mouse again?"

"Will you forget the mouse!" Rayne roared at him, her impatience was fueled by her gnawing curiosity. "Fetch me that book on the top shelf there."

Farns followed Rayne's pointing finger up to the top shelf. With a smile, "Oh, faeries are very nice creatures, Miss Rayne. Madame Burnswick's glossary on them is quite detailed..."

"No, Farns! Not the Faery Glossary, the book second from the last...the black one."

Color bled from Farns's face and his tall bat-ears drooped down the sides of his head, framing the terror behind his eyes. Farns's reaction to the book even made Rayne gulp, a slight whisper of forboding common sense broke through the steely resolve of her curiosity: maybe this isn't such a good idea...

"B-b-b-b-b-but, Miss Rayne! It's forbidden!" Farns grabbed his chest, as if trying to stuff his heart back inside.

Rayne's head spun around that word: "forbidden". Old Lady Burnswick's voice spoke from where her conscience resided, "Every book in my collection is marvelous and filled with extraordinary powers. You may access any that you wish, accept one."

"But why?" Rayne asked the voice in her head, but Farns answered her instead.

"Miss Rayne, it is forbidden magic! It is...EVIL!"

Rayne's curiosity burned darker in her heart, evil or not, she HAD to know what the book contained.

"Miss Rayne?" Farns quivered, his eyes were teary with dread.

"Farns, fetch me the book," Rayne insisted.

"I c-can't, Miss Rayne!" Farns cried, falling to his face on the floor, "PLEASE, MISS RAYNE!"

"FINE!" Rayne hissed venomously, "I'll get it myself."

The pompous child snatched the wooden sides of a rolling ladder and curtailed it from its position over the dusty collection of enchanted histories and ancient tomes of white magic over to the bookcase that had ensnared her curious mind for so long. Aiming the top rung of the ladder directly with the large black book on the top shelf, second from the right, the wheels came to a screeching halt when Rayne kicked the locking latch, which raised the flesh on the back of her neck. Another desperate plea from the that tiny, sensible voice pierced through, trying to persuade Rayne from going through with this madness.

Farns's mouth was a perfect O of disbelief, "NO!" Farns leapt to his knees and prayed to Rayne to reconsider, but it was too late; she was lost to her desperate need to have this one thing that she was denied by her mentor.

Licking her lips, Rayne climbed the rickety ladder, her heart beating faster with every step. The dark tome called to her, its binding becoming more pronounced the closer she came to it. Features she could not make out from the ground floor were now becoming clear. The book was bound in leather straps and singed chains, and small red globs were dotted all about the cover.

Rayne reached the final rung and with her greedy hand, she reached out for the book, its spine was just out of her reach. Rayne stretched as far as her arm would allow, but her fingertips could only brush the leathery back of the great tome, the feel of it was intoxicating. How old it must be! How powerful! Rayne's desire consumed her entirely. She reached once more for the tome, and as if hearing her heart's wish, the dark book rustled in its cobwebby prison and slowly slid towards the edge of the shelf. With unbridled elation, Rayne snatched the book from the shelf and flew down the ladder, her mind could barely wait to absorb the magical secrets it had to offer.

The dark tome was curious to Rayne. It was so old and ratty, yet the work Agatha had put in to binding it was a bit unnerving. It was as if she was trying to cage something within its pages. Rayne laughed at this suggestion, and quickly fetched the pliers from a tool chest. It took three tries before Rayne could finally slice open the chains. Like metallic snakes, the binding uncurled and revealed more of the tome. Another curious feature became apparent to Rayne, the tome did not have a title. Every other book in Burnswick's library was neatly labled with what resided in that book's ancient pages.

Unbuckling the thirteen leather belts wrapped around the blackened spellbook, Rayne opened the nameless dark tome to the first pages which were filled with horrific pictures of a spectral creature that was impaling humans on crystal spikes that seemed to grow up through the barren land. Rayne felt a trickle of sweat cascade its lone course down her temple as she read, "The Wraith" underneath one of the gory illustrations.

"PLEASE! MISS RAYNE!" Farns screamed at the top of his lungs, jumping up and down with his hands grasping his long, frazzled white hair.

"FARNS! SHUT UP!" Rayne roared back at the hobgoblin. Her foul temper was short-lived as the book shifted in her hands, causing her to leap to her feet in a squeeky panic. The pages of the black book were shuffling themselves back and forth, a strange drilling sound came from within the tome's pages.

When the pages stopped, Rayne saw in amazement a spell titled, "Soundless". The incantation was in Latin. Reading aloud the spell with a twinge of excitement, Rayne could feel a cold power pulse through her body and then expel out towards the hobgoblin.

Farns doubled back as if struck with something heavy. Clutching his throat, his lips curled together and then vanished. Farns clawed at his mouthless face, jumping up and down in hysteria.

"Holy shit!" Rayne gawked at the power of the spell. "Now that's what I'm talkin' about!"

Glaring outside the window, Rayne thought to herself, "I wonder what other spells the old woman's been holding out on?" Again, the book shuffled its pages and opened to the end of the tome with a spell titled: "Summoning".

"Cool! It's like it can understand me!"

Rayne read the complicated incantation to herself. Then to Farns, "This magic is so powerful! She must have been afraid that I wouldn't be able to handle it."

Farns, the hobgoblin, did not answer her. His nostrils had begun to fuse shut, slowly constricting his air. Rayne was too engrossed in the enchanted text of the dark tome to notice the hobgoblin had begun writhing on the floor, his eyes becoming pronouncially bloodshot and his cheeks fading into a dark purplish-blue shade.

"Oh!" Rayne had nearly forgotten about the hexed hobgoblin and quickly thumbed back to the Soundless spell and found the reversal incantation right behind it. With a quick Latin verse, the flesh across Farn's nostrils and mouth tore open and bled like horrible wounds. Farns chokingly screamed and crawled weakly away into the back room and slammed the door. Rayne could not help but smile at how much power she had wielded and a dark satisfaction came over her when she recalled the look of absolute fear on Farns's face.

"Oh stop Farns! The old lady will be home any minute and I wanna surprise her with what I can do. Besides, all of these spells are paired with a reversal spell, so if something goes wrong, I'll just take it back."

Farns did not reply from the other side of the door, but Rayne did not care. She was already reciting the lengthy incantation of Summoning. The final lines were approaching when the back door flew open and Farns rushed into the room, a hatchet in his little hands, his mouth and nose still dripping with blood. "You evil bitch! I won't let you kill us all!" Rayne screamed in surprise as Farns swung the blade at her, slicing away a chunk of her thigh. Rayne collapsed to the floor and watched in wide eyed horror as Farns raised the blade over his head, his eyes wild with rage and hatred. "STOP FARNS!" Rayne screamed. The dark tome flew from the table into Rayne's lap, its pages flipped to a section called "Deathless". There were three words engraved in the pages. Rayne bellowed them out as the hobgoblin swung the hatched down: "no morte mi!". The hatchet found its mark in Rayne's chest, its blade crunched through her ribs and sliced her heart open. Blood projected from the wound and she was instantly bathed in red.

Gasping, Rayne felt cold as death came close to her. However, something strange stirred in her veins. Something undefinable. Her heart continued to beat and blood continued to pour from her, yet death seemed to have only come half way. With disbelief, Rayne sat up and pulled the hatchet from her chest, the wound healing instantly behind it. Farns's eyes grew wide with horror.

"You're a monster!" Farns screamed. Rayne's blood boiled, her clothes and hair were wet with her own blood; blood that this despicable creature had spilled. A storm raged in her heart as she climbed to her feet, her shadow eclipsing the little creature, his feet frozen to the ground.

"You little shit! You will suffer for that!" Rayne growled. The dark tome spun through its pages again, landing on a darkened page towards the middle of the tome labled "Lifeless". Rayne glared down at the encantation and read it aloud, her fury dripping off of every syllable. A red flash errupted from the book and ensnared the little body of Farns. In an instant, his body shriveled up as if his life force was being leeched away. The light dimmed away and Farns's mummified, screaming corpse fell to the ground and shattered to dust.

Rayne cackled madly at the power she commanded. "This is amazing! The old hag has NOTHING on me!" The dark tome flipped through its pages again and landed once more on the Summoning page. Rayne smirked and began reading the encantation.

When she had finished, a dark chill filled the house and the shadows seemed to writhe in the corners as if brought to life by some unseen master.

A great, tall shade surreptitiously slithered out from the shadows, emitting a high-pitched, otherworldly shriek that raised Rayne's flesh all over and sent a frostwave down her spine. Rayne's mind filled with horror at what she had unleashed. It's face was skeletal and dripped with bloody, ravenous maggots. In one of its black, scabbed hands it clutched a twisted scythe, the smell of rotting flesh and salty tears perfumed the serrated blade. This creature was like nothing she could have ever imagined in her darkest nightmares. It was Fear; It was Hate; It was Death!

"STOP!" Rayne screamed at the creature. With a hissing laughter that made Rayne shiver violently, the malevolent shade slipped underneath the front door and vanished into the night.

Rayne's mind was racing too fast to notice that Madame Burnswick had returned home and was opening the front door, her bags of groceries in her arms. No, Rayne was too busy desperately trying to locate the reversal spell to the summoning.

"Rayne?" Madame Burnswick's gentle voice was a little concerned when she saw the pile of gray dust next to the front door.

"Where is it!" Rayne growled with fury at the book. Hopelessness began to sink into her head as the back of the book was missing a page with the paired reversal spell to the summoning.

"Where's what, dear?" Madame Burnswick asked gently again, setting down her groceries and approaching her apprentice. Sighting the black tome on the table behind Rayne, Madame Burnswick gasped with terror. "Rayne! What are you doing with that book?"

Before Rayne could come up with an answer, a cacophony of bloodcurdling screams from the town outside the old witch's house commanded the night and snuffed out all other sound.

Madame Burnswick whipped a frightful stare at Rayne, the sound of chaos outside confirming her darkest fears.

"No...no, no, no! You let it out? You freed the demon?" Madame Burnswick's voice cracked with agony. "What madness drove you to pull that monstrosity from the void? There's no controlling it!"

"B-but Madame Burnswick! Where's the reversal spell? There's a page missing!" Rayne cried.

"No, you stupid girl!" Burnswick's voice was sharp and dangerous, "There IS no reversal spell. There never was."

"B-but..." Rayne was shaking her head in disbelief, everything she thought she knew of magic law was slipping from her head.

"Do you have any idea how long I have kept the evil within this cursed tome in check? There are no words to describe the horror that you have unleashed upon this town, Rayne! And for what! For power, for recognition...what!"

Rayne was lamenting, her face buried in her hands as she collapsed to her knees before the tall Madame Burnswick. Sneering at the pathetic girl before her feet, Madame Burnswick continued to chide Rayne, "Or perhaps it was simply to satisfy your own curiosity. Yes...that DOES sound more like you. Your insatiable appetite for having what you have been denied has damned you, Rayne!"

"Please!" Rayne threw her arms around Madame Burnswick's waist, "Make it stop! There has to be a way to make it STOP!"

Madame Burnswick flung Rayne away with a flick of her wrinkly hand. Skidding into the bookshelf, an avalanche of heavy tomes came crashing down upon the young girl.

"There is only one way," Madame Burnswick spat. "If you had simply waited for me to teach you about summoning magic, you would have never done this!"

Rayne rose from the pile of fallen books, her clothes were ripped and her face was bruised and red with fearful tears, "What? Anything!"

"You are connected to the Wraith, my dear. Summoner to creation. A creature that is conjured can only be vanquished in the event that the one responsible for helping it crossover, dies".

Madame Burnswick's words cut into Rayne's heart. Frozen, Rayne swam in her own mind, trying desperately to come up with a way out of this nightmare. Madame Burnswick beckoned to a large gray book of spells lying next to Rayne's foot. With a wisk of unseen forces, it flew to Madame Burnswick and hovered in midair while flipping through its own pages before landing on a chosen spot.

Rayne's eyes connected with Madame Burnswick's which burned with a blackness over the gray book's pages. The empty black of her mentor's eyes was something that Rayne had never dreamed could dwell behind the old woman's kindly face. Rayne could feel her breathing hasten and her heart race. She knew what the look in Madame Burnswick's eyes meant, and Rayne feared for her own life.

"I am sorry, Rayne," Madame Burnswick waved to the front door, which slammed shut and locked, "But it is for the greater good."

"W-what? Wait!" Rayne felt her heart leap into her throat, choking her silent.

In a flash, Madame Burnswick flawlessly recited a Latin encantation.

A large red burst of light filled the room and Rayne collapsed to the floor, the suffering death wails of the townspeople ceased along with the light of life that dimmed into nothingness within the glassy, vacant stare of the young apprentice. Her heart slowed as Burnswick began packing her things, her books shrinking down to pea-sizes and falling into her great bag. The cold came for her again, the breath of death was on her throat. Burnswick locked the front door and made her way to the back door when Rayne's heart reached that middle ground once more, where death seemed to stop half way. Slowly rising to her feet, Mrs. Burnswick caught her apprentice from the corner of her old eyes. A gasp of fright and disbelief reverberated through the now empty house.

"It's impossible! You couldn't have been so stupid! Not even you!" Mrs. Burnswick screamed at the reanimated Rayne.

"What are you talking about, you tried to kill me!" Rayne screamed back.

"You can't die, my dear," Mrs. Brunswick's face melted into a horrible piteous gaze. "Never."

"So?"

"So?! That means neither can the Wraith! It will devour the world! Everyone except you! You and it will live forever in darkness, upon the corpses of the earth! Oh, you poor wretch!"

"No..." Rayne could not bare the thought of being alone with that creature again. "There has to be SOMETHING!"

"There is not, my dear. You are damned. We are all damned."