122. Protective Wards

122. Protective Wards
Trigger Warning: Ritual is started in this chapter may be too gruesome for some of the readers; I will give you a heads up in the chapter, when it is so if you want to skip over that section.  

I was back with Malachar and him teaching me. He asked me who I wanted to run the land I had restored and with much thought I admitted that I didn’t know. He smiled a wicked smile. It was indicative that he was happy, and I was clueless. He liked knowing I didn’t have the forethought he did.  

It made me sick that he liked me helpless. But it also insured I would survive him, he clearly saw me as no threat, he was so wrong. The upcoming weekend I was going to Paris with Teddy, and we would be tracking one of the dark artifacts while there. Malachar had no idea about my plans, and it lit a fire in me.  
I had combed through my father's journals. Not once stopping to sleep. I took my blood from the vein bound in my study and ignored everyone and everything despite both Leia and Teddy trying to get me to rest. I couldn’t though. I had to destroy Malachar. It was driving me. I knew I was looking a bit crazed by it all, but I couldn’t help it.  

Malachar planned to go step by step during our lesson. We were focusing on blood wards today and would be for the rest of the week. It was ironic that I had already read about those and even broken through my fathers at the Draycot estate to find the books that would kill the monster who is teaching me. It would be so sweet when I killed him. 

My mind started to wander to what actually would happen if I found all the dark relics and destroyed them all. I wondered what happen to his body. Would he break apart into dust or would he explode? Maybe he would just fall to the ground his deformed body would remain intact?  

I didn’t know but I was thrilled to see it happen. “Now most estates don’t have blood wards for protection. They do blood magic have blood magic, but not towards themselves for protection. That’s what we’re trying to focus on.” he said this makes sense to me. I had been attacked at Astor Hall when the war was still going on and I was first left alone there. If there have been a blood wards, that wouldn’t have happened.  

I nodded anxious to get started I would set them up at Astor Hall when I had learned how to do it correctly. It turned out there was a ritual to make such thing, and my stomach turned over when Malachar said it. It was a complicated one. He would go over the steps during this week. “It will take a full week to set on up a protection ward, a full seven days” he said. A blood ward and each day of the seven I would have to be here. That meant the trip to Paris would be quick as I would have to be here.  

Malachar was teaching by not only walking me through everything but demonstrating as well. Both of us would be preforming the ritual for the blood ward on this workspace. He explained “Now, with Protection Blood Wards, it prevents those from who wish to do you harm from crossing into the space. There are other wards but this one we are doing is about protection. You can bring people in through and if you are with them, it nullifies the protection. Also, someone who is already inside will not be expelled, they just can’t exit then reenter if their intentions are still nefarious.”  

I was in luck because since we were both going to be setting this ritual, obviously we could do harm to one another. But no one could pass into the room if they meant us harm unless we brought them in.  

This is where it is going to get gross so feel free to just skip it 

Malachar  had both a man and a woman standing in front of us. “Pick” he said, and I took the woman. He had sealed their mouth to keep them quiet. “Okay so first you start on the north side of the room.” I nodded grabbing the woman’s arm and took her just as Malachar did with the man. When I got to the north side of the workspace there was two large glass jars. 

“Now you will need to take out their heart first and place it in the jar. Then you will need to take blood from your own heart and put it on there on top of the organ. If this was done outside, we would bury the organs as we are inside, we will put the heart and our blood in the jars. When day seven arrives, we can burn them, but the jars need to remain, burying them outside is the most efficient because it requires no fire and you won’t have jars with ash sitting around” he said. “The jar is to keep the smell at bay, as well as contain the ash once we burn them.”  He added.  

Then he walked me through the easiest way to retrieve my blood from my heart. It consisted of a very large needle, and he said, “You must have steady hands.” He went first to walk me through. I did as he had and was shocked by myself that I had done it. I hated that he was such a good teacher. It made me sick that I liked something about him. “The heart is where the coronary arteries are. Tomorrow, we go to the east side of the room and do carotid arteries, we will do the same process but with neck.”  

He went on to explain Wednesday would be south side of the room and vertebral arteries which was spine. Thursday was the iliac artery which was in the pelvis. I was repulsed but kept a neutral face and to think removing someone’s spine was going to be tough a pelvis would be grotesque. Friday would be femoral artery which was in the legs. Subclavian was Saturday and would be found in the arms and celiac arteries would be the last and, in the center of the room, it was the digestive system, and I knew that would be the grossest of them all.   

“Any questions?” Malachar asked. “Are all blood wards done with rituals?”  “Yes” he confirmed. I hated them, I hated rituals they were the worst thing out there and now I was doing them. I left for the day feeling disgusted with myself. The second I returned to Astor Hall I threw up, disgusted with myself. 

I raised my hands, and power ran through me and lightning cracked across the sky. I was angry, and disgusted, with Malachar and with myself. I pushed everything I had out of me and let it wreak devastation across the sky. I could feel myself hitting the ground. Leia was running out toward me now that I had stopped the storm that I made rage.