Note of the Week 014

Here's another quick excerpt from Taking Jezebel.

A trail of burning rosemary hung upon the air, herbal and intoxicating. Something dragged him, an invisible tether coaxing him through the abandoned, shadowy halls of their cloisters. A coven’s muted whispers tapped against his ticklish ribs, their maniacal laughter subdued by the distance between them, but gradually swelling with each of his reflexive steps in their direction, toward an arched entryway, through the port cased in sumac (its leaves flourishing as he passed by underneath, spinning on their vines like bracted fingers, straining to scratch at his skin). The port opened outward, onto a quadrangle between the buildings that formed the ring-shaped compound. That sliver of open air, cast from the center of the structure, was used for their deepest, darkest, inmost conniving sorcery—dredging up their Takers, their demons, with age-old words of conjuring.

A platform was raised at the center of the grounds and hooded figures surrounded it, arms raised in supplication toward their leader, standing at his throne, at court before them. His robe was specially designed, with a separate golden hood—a detachable swatch of fabric that was tied around his neck and obscuring much of his face; only his sharp-pointed bird’s nose and harsh-cleft chin peeked out. Unlike his attendants, who all wore traditional burlap cowls with wide open sleeves, the Overseer’s arms were only covered up to the middle of his forearms. Veins curved and collided across his pasty skin. He was whispering something in Latin, which Orson couldn’t quite decipher. It rose in pitch.