The Curse of Deadman's Forest by Victoria Laurie Page A

He recalled the time, some three thousand years earlier, when word had reached him that the sorceress had destroyed a series of villages during her personal raid on the lands east of the Rhine River, and that she had entered a forest rumored to be cursed and was never seen again. He suspected that the legend might be true, especially as the witch had just unwittingly revealed a significant clue.
    Only his Druid ancestors had power over the likes of Magus and his sisters. In the early days, after Magus and his siblings had destroyed their own village, the elders of all the Druid tribes had gathered and focused their mortal yet considerable magic to create powerful structures capable of imprisoning the demigods.
    These structures were made of standing stones—huge monoliths positioned in a ring and inscribed with ancient magical symbols that could slowly drain all the power right out of any of Demogorgon’s offspring. It would take many thousands of years to eventually render Magus and his sisters completely powerless and send them to the underworld to greet their father—unless the stone tasted a drop of their blood; then their demise would speed along quite rapidly. But no living person knew that besides Magus and his sisters.
    Still, the threat of the stones was enough to cause him to avoid places like Stonehenge and Grimspound—and Delphi Keep, for that matter.
    He could often feel the power of the standing stones he knew must be buried somewhere underneath the structure that housed those cursed children, because he could never make it within half a kilometer of the keep before feeling his powers weaken. And that wretched portal was protected as well, by another series of stones, which covered the entrance.
    So if the Witch of Versailles was right, and his sister Lachestia had ventured unwittingly into a forest with a ring of hidden standing stones, then she could very well have been entrapped by them.
    While Magus was thinking on this, he noticed the witch eyeing him cautiously. She seemed to want to say more, but again looked too frightened to speak.
“What?”
he snapped when she remained mute.
    The witch shivered with fright, but she still managed to answer the sorcerer. “The forest that imprisons your sister is cursed, Sir Magus. If you enter the wood, I fear you too will be trapped.”
    “What power fuels this curse?” he pressed, testing her.
    “An ancient one,” whispered the witch. “Set in stone.”
    Magus smiled and decided not to kill the witch after all. “I’m also looking for some children,” he said casually. “A boy named Ian and his sister, Theo. I mean to find them at their most vulnerable and destroy them. Can you divine when and where I might have an opportunity to carry out my desire?”
    The witch looked doubtfully back into her crystal ball. She gulped and eyed the sorcerer nervously again. “They arewell protected,” she said. “There are many who gather round these children to ensure their safety.”
    Magus nodded, understanding fully.
    “At this time, Sir Magus, I cannot discover the moment when they will be made vulnerable to you, but I shall keep looking if you’d like.”
    Magus reached into the folds of his cloak and pulled out a large gold coin, which he tossed at the witch. She caught it easily. “I’d like that very much, witch. Very much indeed.”

MADRID
    I an, Carl, and Theo sat lazily on the train, all three of them looking absently out the window at the scenery flashing by. It had changed little on their progression south through France and Spain.
    They passed farm after farm and had certainly seen enough grapevines to last a lifetime. The only thing that seemed to change was the steadily increasing temperature. It was hot and muggy inside the train, and Ian pulled at his damp shirt and looked longingly out the open window, which gave at least a little relief from the hot summer day.
    Beside him Theo squirmed and murmured something, and Ian realized she was