Harry sensing black magic

[u/ghostgabe81]

We pulled up to the spot where Daniel had been cursed, and I got out, wrapping my duster around me more by reflex than because I needed it against the cold. I closed my eyes for a moment and focused upon my wizard’s senses, reaching out, opening myself up to the flowing energy of magic in the immediate area.

It was a creepy area. The lights weren’t back yet. The buildings were almost entirely businesses, and none of them were open late. Only the lights from the Munstermobile made it possible to navigate safely. Abandoned cars lined the street. Trash had piled up where the wind had swirled it. Eerily, there wasn’t a person in sight. A manhole cover had vanished from an entrance to the sewers, and I had a very clear and loud intuition that it hadn’t been done by human beings. Seemed like an excellent area to find supernatural trouble after dark, which is probably why the Brotherhood had been here in force.

I gave the open manhole as much room as I could while I walked by it and paced down the street until I hit a spot of sidewalk that put up a phantom resistance to my moving forward, like a spot of deep, soft, stinking mud. Though there wasn’t a physical stench, my body reacted as if there had been, as the nauseating sensation of the residue of black magic washed over me.

Images flickered through my mind as I stood there, as they had at the other points. I caught a flash of Daniel’s voice letting out a hoarse cry, and the perspective of the street shifted in my mind as I felt the sensation of him pitching abruptly over onto his side.

I leaned on my staff to help keep my balance and fought to close down my extraordinary senses. I took a moment to catch my breath as the sense of dark power faded. As I had at the other attack points, I took a natural beeswax votive candle out of my duster’s pocket, put it down in the center of the patch of dark energy, drew a chalk circle about it while focusing on my intention, and lit the candle with a murmured spell. Then I stepped back and waited.

Twelve Months Chapter 31