Percy put the books down once he was done reading and stared into empty space for a moment. The attic had grown quiet as Thalos watched for any sign of the spirit. The traces of destruction after the first fight with the spirit were left in the walls and floor.
"We could just run though?" Percy said suddenly. "Ditch the Ramlos parents and their battalion of kids and get going on our journey."
"I don't know," Thalos replied. "This is kind of the only place we have to sleep tonight, and I'd really like to sleep."
Percy groaned noisily and scrambled to his feet, adjusting his clothes irritatedly. His mind whirred as he looked for a solution.
"Killing that thing won't be very easy. The Baskers were trying to summon a Rank 5 spirit, but only managed to draw a portion of its power."
Thalos raised an eyebrow. He had never even heard about a Rank 5 spirit in his travels. What was a family of farmers summoning such a thing for?
"What kind of harvest were they trying to get? Or was this like a philanthropy thing?" Thalos glanced at the picture of the family on the ground. "Well we can rule out kindness as a motive. Evil seems like a tradition for those guys."
"Hey, they might look horribly deformed and dress like they boil children for fun."
Thalos waited for a moment, then he raised his hands.
"There's no but, those guys are really as evil as they look. Probably even eviler if you read those diaries. There's shit in there no child should ever read."
Thalos rolled his eyes, already used to his son's dramatic expressions. But he was worried about something.
"Rank 5 is a bit too high for me. And they have powers that I may not be able to protect you from. Anything that attacks me will be cut down, but…"
"Don't worry about me, dad. I'm a bit too high for a Rank 5 to kill. Besides, I think we can get rid of it by disrupting the circle."
Ramona Basker said in her diary that her brother Philip had been swallowed by Gaia. He thought that it was the actual god that came down and devoured the child. But now he knew it was even worse than that.
The Baskers forced Philip to perform the Theurgy ritual in their place and watched from a safe distance as the child called on what they thought was a Rank 5 spirit. But Gaia wasn't some random spirit close to godhood.
If Percy was right, she might be above godhood itself, as in the myths she was the literal earth itself.
The ritual obviously went horribly wrong. They didn't have enough of a sacrifice to offer Gaia, so the earth opened up and swallowed Philip, along with the other thirty people the Basker family had killed and brought as sacrifices.
He honestly couldn't blame anyone for having a bad view of Hermetics. Some people are just insane and will do anything for power. The Baskers didn't even know what sacrifice Gaia required and just thought, Hey, when has killing multiple people never worked.
Percy turned to Thalos, a bit worried whether he should tell his father that they might be dealing with something worse than a Rank 5 spirit.
"Whatever the Baskers were trying to summon didn't like their sacrifice. So it swallowed the person that was conducting the ritual. A kid named Philip. I think it's his spirit and the spirits of the people murdered by this fucked up family that's haunting this place."
Thalos took a moment to digest what he said. He could only think of one reason why a child would be performing such a ritual. They forced one of their children to perform a task they were too scared to do themselves.
"We have to free that boy's spirit. If he keeps killing here then his soul won't rise above the Dark sea, and he'll never reincarnate."
The Dark sea was the underworld for some people in this world. He heard some other variations of this that were closer to the myths from his world, but this was Thalos' afterlife. One in which your sins dragged you to the depths of a lightless ocean, and you would never be reborn.
Sounds like it would suck. Philip was just a kid that loved playing with his sister, he didn't deserve that. The only reason his spirit attacked people was because of the accumulated hate in this land.
"We have to find where his body sank into the ground," Percy said finally. "Do you have any way of digging into the ground with an attack?"
"No, but George can easily. He specialises in earth magic."
"We'll have to get him then, once all the children are off the property."
They both jumped out of the attic, ran down the stairs and escaped the house. The chilly and dark sky made his eyes heavy and his body groan in exhaustion. Thalos was right, they really needed to sleep tonight.
He waved at George in the distance and Thalos let out a loud roar that told only him to come. The figure of the red-haired man grew till he was in front of them, axe in hand and ready for a fight.
"You folks need me for anything? Because I am ready to fight and kill whatever you point me at."
"We actually need you to dig a hole," Percy said awkwardly. "The body of a cursed child is underground and we need it up here."
George's eyes widened, then a big smile grew on his lips.
"Oh, yes, I can do that too. Just tell me where and I'll get to it."
They all made their way to the backyard, facing every direction at once. Each shadow seemed a bit too dark or human-shaped to his eye, his breath was misty against the cold air.
It was too quiet. He could only remember when he used the [Tailwind] spell in the attic, and the form of the spirit was outlined.
Was it watching them now? Waiting for a single slip-up, so it could enter someone's shadow and choke them to death silently.
There was a scream in his chest, yearning to be released. To warn everyone to escape now and just leave Philip's spirit to someone else. He had to remind himself that he was here so nothing would go wrong.
It was a bit dumb when you thought about it like that. But who else could he trust to do everything right?
He stopped, looking down at a patch of the earth.
"I think here. Dig up this part of the earth."
George flexed his arm and began chanting. His voice was deep, vibrating into Percy's bones. The chant was done in a second. Updates are released by novel•fire.net
A circle of the soil ripped itself from the ground, a floating saucer of dirt three times as wide as all three of them.
Percy was about to congratulate the red-haired madman when a scream ripped through the cold night.