Magician Rising (Divination in Darkness Book 1)

by Renée des Lauriers

  The thing dropped Nikolai, snarling. Withdrawing fingers that were coated red to the knuckle. It stepped back into the shadows and disappeared within them.

  Silently apologizing, Jun placed her hand on Nikolai, not touching the injured shoulder. With her other hand, Jun brushed the sleek fur of the rabbit.

  With that touch, light reverberated within her until she felt it deep in her core.

  Please.

  The light hummed in anticipation.

  This is getting out of hand. Everything just needs to go back to before this all happened. Please take me back. Let me fix this.

  Light gathered, vibrating with the electric pulse of life.

  Then it ricocheted outward, taking them with it.

  19

  6:54 a.m.

  Richard Dawson was skeptical at first. The idea of sleeping pills seemed… excessive. Couldn’t a nice cup of chamomile do the trick? He didn’t want himself at the mercy of pharmaceutical aids. But he had to admit that he felt more rested. He even got Mr. Barkley out for his walk a good fifteen minutes earlier.

  It was a nice, crisp morning. Richard almost forgot how the cool air agreed with him. The sky glowed in the light pink of the morning sun. It was quiet. Before the bustle of morning commutes, the rush of people and all that hectic chaos of productivity, Richard was at peace. Mourning doves cooed, and wild turkeys clucked in the distance. As Mr. Barkley walked, his tags jingled against his collar.

  Had the groomers used a new shampoo? Mr. Barkley had a really lovely curl to his champagne coat. He’d have to make sure to keep the silly old dog away from puddles and questionable dirt patches. Richard had learned the hard way that Barkley would be more than happy to roll around in the smelliest bit of nastiness he could find.

  Halfway around the block, the fruit trees were working overtime. The peaches were all looking rather splendid. Only a few more days now until they were ripe. If he knocked on the door of that nice old Mr. Bear and talked for five minutes about fishing, he was sure to get a peach or three handed off to him.

  Well, it was good of him to check on the old man anyhow, now that his daughter was out of the house.

  Yes, the peaches were quite large. If they were anything like last year, they would be just the right amount of sweet and oh so juicy and… gone? The peach Richard had been staring at wasn’t there anymore. How was that possible?

  He was staring right at the glorious yellow peach fuzz when the fruit suddenly disappeared. Blinked out of existence right in front of his eyes. Richard took a hard look at the trees. It wasn’t just the one fruit. None of the trees had any fruit on them.

  Richard stopped in his tracks. When he looked closer, he noted mounds of pits littered around the grass. Squirrels must have gotten to them and eaten everything before he got a chance at them. What a shame. But that’s not right. I just saw them. I know that I just saw them.

  He only realized he stopped walking when he heard the sporadic jangling that announced Barkley was rolling around in fertilizer, and smears of it streaked the once pristine fur. “Damn it, Barkley!”

  The dog jolted up and shook himself, wagging his tail with pride. Probably proud of himself for getting away with it. Cheeky bastard.

  Richard finished his jaunt around the block, leaving Barkley in his crate. The groomers didn’t even open for another hour and a half. A dog bath was not in his plans for the day, but neither was getting the aroma of fresh fertilizer all over the place. What a day, and it was barely past seven.

  Maybe all he needed was to clean his face and wake himself up a little more. Then he would be able to plan what to do. Richard made his way over to the bathroom, wet his hands and rubbed them vigorously over his eyes. He looked closer at his reflection. No, there wasn’t any water still over his eyes, blurring his view.

  He had no face.

  Richard screamed a mouthless scream and clutched at the smooth skin covering every inch of his head. All his features in the reflection seen every day for the past forty-seven years were replaced by vague indentations in a blank mass of skin.

  And then it wasn’t. He had a face again. Richard patted the skin, feeling the familiar curve of his eyebrows, the light stubble across his jaw, and the slight scar he got in fourth grade when he crashed his bike into a stop sign. He was all right. It was all right.

  Richard forced himself to take in deep breaths. All right.

  “This is ridiculous.”

  The extra hour of sleep wasn’t worth it. “Dr. Travinsky doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

  Richard opened his bottle of Ambien and dumped each and every pill into the toilet, flushing them down the drain.

  It wasn’t enough proof. Just because her phone’s GPS location marked her at Jack’s house didn’t mean that they were fucking.

  Should he text her? See if she responds?

  No, put your damn phone away, you’re at work.

  Ankush put the phone in his pocket, and his fingers twitched with the need to pick it back up again.

  It wasn’t like there was much else to do. Three customers entered his uncle’s 7-Eleven since his shift started at five in the morning. For all that Uncle Ram claimed this was a prime commuter location, customers were sparse before the summer. They were really in the middle of nowhere.

  Ankush was alone with the hum of fluorescent lights, the scent of burnt coffee, and that guy in torn jeans who spent the past six minutes trying to decide between the bag of Funyuns and the Clif bar.

  Was he not spending enough time with her?

  Sure, recently he had more late nights studying and the extra shifts. But he was doing it all for her. How else was he going to take her out to Fogo de Chão? That place was not cheap.

  How else was he going to provide for her?

  Did she really think that she’d be able to afford weekly manicures and cocktails if he worked at a convenience store for the rest of his life?

  But really? Jack?

  Didn’t Jack barely avoid flunking out of his Business class? What was Jack going to do for her?

  Maybe he should get her that Louis Vuitton wallet she’d hinted about. It could be an anniversary gift.

  Is that her reward for cheating on me?

  She could have just gone on a friendly visit. Early in the morning. Right.

  His fingers drummed against the counter. Nothing interesting ever happened before seven in the morning anyway.

  He checked his phone. She was still at Jack's house.

  He swallowed down the curses he wanted to fling at Jack. At her. How could she do this to him? He tapped out a quick message. Thanks for being a cheating whore. We're done.

  Ankush let out a deep breath and moved his thumb over to the x button to delete it.

  Glass shattered in a bang like a gunshot. The door to the frozen food slammed open and cracked, though no one had been anywhere near it.

  Ankush stared at the broken glass, slack jawed, until his attention was diverted to the cash on the counter that had definitely not been there before. What the hell was this?

  “Hey!” Ankush called out thirty seconds late as Mr. Funyuns-Clifbar ran out with both snacks.

  Whatever. Never mind that. He had to call his uncle. They might even need to shut down the store for the day.

  “Oh, shit.” Ankush stared at his phone in horror. The text had sent.

  Bobbie Bear skimmed through the letter from the Summit Medical Center until he found the results that he was looking for. He glanced over references to the blood work and elevated HCG levels and the CT scan results that showed one mass was getting larger. He crumpled it up and tossed it across the room into the trash can.

  He had to tell her.

  No. It would completely derail her studies, and Jun only had a month to go. He could hold out for that much longer.

  But she deserved to know. Perhaps they could spend the last few weeks together.

  Bobbie sighed and picked up his rubber gloves to finish the last of the dishes.
/>   He couldn't screw up her degree for that. If he did, where would that leave her? What would happen to her when he was gone? Her graduation was in four weeks. They still had time.

  A metallic crash and a high-pitched shriek came from within his house. Bobbie dropped the mug he was washing—the one Jun got him last Father’s Day with the message “Education is important, but fishing is importanter.” The handle snapped off. Bobbie held the broken pieces for a moment and tried to see if they would fit back together before he shook his head. He stalked off in the direction of the crash.

  “Pickles!”

  The three-tiered cage had crashed to the floor, with Jun's pet trapped and scrabbling at the bottom.

  20

  The rush of sound was a jumbled mess of honking cars, wind, cawing, talking. Nikolai pressed his good hand to his ear. There was so much noise.

  “Can you do something to help him?” Jun said to someone.

  Intense light blocked out the haze. It drew nearer. Painfully bright, filling everything. Shutting his eyes did nothing to cut the glare. Like staring into a sun plucked out of the sky. The light made contact—a soft but solid tap on his forehead from a hand that wasn’t human.

  With that touch, the light dimmed. As it faded, details emerged.

  The world was gray. But it was no longer a haze.

  “That mark on your face is gone. Can you see now?”

  Nikolai nodded.

  He could see. As if the world was a black and white movie. Cars, blades of grass, swaying trees. People walking into a building. All in shades of gray.

  The white rabbit sat at the source of the light. Now chewing on a piece of grass.

  Nikolai pressed his palm over his eyes, blocking out his vision. Just to be sure. Even with his sight restored, when Nikolai closed his eyes, he could still see the light—glaring like a miniaturized sun in the exact place where that rabbit sat.

  “Jun, that’s not a rabbit.” The sphinx had mentioned light. Could this odd little animal be what she was talking about?

  She sighed. “I know.” All of her pastel tones were muted gray. Without the violent purple of her hat, she looked smaller somehow. Ephemeral and lovely. “What is it?”

  That energy coiling and humming within the light. Nikolai had felt it before.

  “I think the rabbit is magic. Not just magical. Magic itself.”

  The rabbit stopped eating and was standing on its hind legs, waving at him and then clapping.

  Jun looked away. “What about the other one?”

  The creature?

  Did magic dwell in that thing of smoke and shadows? Nikolai recalled the tendrils. Like greasy, twisting lust filling the air. Heavy.

  “Yeah, probably. A different form of magic.” Nikolai brushed his thumb across his cheek. The scratches there felt like they had been healing for weeks, not minutes. The sharp pain in his arm was reduced to a dull throb. He’d never encountered magic used to heal.

  How did this work, though? Where were they? They’d been inside of a Chinese restaurant, and now the magic had dumped them in the middle of a field.

  The building looked familiar. The columns and the arched windows, the pinnacles on the roof. Those lamp lights. This was Jun’s college.

  But there was something off.

  A girl walked by in a shapeless shift dress with a white collar. Long hair set back with a headband, but oddly bumped up.

  In the street, there was a Ford Thunderbird and a Plymouth Barracuda. All car models from the late 1960s. And something told Nikolai that this wasn’t a vintage car festival.

  “Hey, Jun?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Is everything in black and white because we’ve gone back in time?”

  “What are you talking about? I don’t see anything in black and white.”

  Nikolai sighed. He was just colorblind, then. At least it was an improvement over being blind blind.

  Jun held her hand up like she was stopping traffic. “Wait. What do you mean back in time?”

  “Look at the cars. The outfits.”

  Jun turned a full 360 degrees, holding her hand to her brow to block out the nonexistent glare from the sun. She stared so obviously at a guy in a plaid sport coat that he winked back at her. “We went back in time. Shit.”

  “You weren’t trying to go back? Think. What exactly did you ask for?”

  “I just asked to go back to before all this started.” Jun shook her head. Eyes wide. Like she had no idea how this could have happened.

  “So you did ask to go back in time.”

  “Not this far! I meant to go back to before time stopped.”

  “Magic isn’t paying attention to what you meant.”

  “You aren’t helping.” Jun crossed her arms and glared at him. How the hell did he get roped into teaching a magician?

  “All right. You said you wanted to go back, but what we want to do is go forward. To move past the moment we were stuck in.”

  “Fine, I’ll just grab the rabbit and try it again.”

  “Where did the rabbit go?” Nikolai looked at the empty patch of lawn where the rabbit was just sitting.

  “Shit!”

  Nikolai scanned the perimeter for movement as Jun chanted a litany of curses. The concrete was pale all around. A camouflage for light fur. This would have been so much easier if he wasn’t colorblind.

  There.

  The rabbit was at the top of the staircase, its back to them. Nikolai saw a blur of white as the rabbit darted after a young couple into a building.

  “That way.” Nikolai pointed.

  Nikolai jogged up the stairs, trying to look like he was late for a class and not like he was desperately chasing after small magic animals.

  Inside was a hallway, doorways on both sides and no rabbit in sight.

  “Should we split up?” Jun panted, clutching at her side.

  “No. I am not getting stuck in the 1960s.”

  Jun opened one door and poked her head in. “Oh,” she said in a loud whisper. “Sorry. Wrong class.” She closed the door slowly.

  Nikolai stopped himself from rolling his eyes. “Come on. We got to cover more ground.”

  Down the hall, and nothing. The corridor ended in a staircase with neither hide nor hair of the rabbit. Jun rounded the corner, crashing head-on with another student. Papers spilled everywhere, and Jun toppled backward. Nikolai caught her before she fell.

  He felt Jun tense as she made eye contact with the student she had collided with.

  Which was odd, because that student wasn’t intimidating at all. Short, like Jun. Cropped black hair with dangling circular earrings. She wore a striped pullover and jeans.

  “Another Asian,” the woman said. “Here, I thought I was the only one in the school.”

  “Sorry,” Jun sputtered before darting to the floor, picking up papers and rearranging them so that they were orientated the same way. Pausing on one. “Bob? You’re working with Bobbie Bear?”

  “Group assignment. Why, you know him?”

  Jun smiled, looking at the name. “He’s really nice.”

  The student nodded thoughtfully as she took the papers back. “Thanks, I’ll see you around.”

  She waved and continued down the hallway.

  Jun stood frozen.

  Before Nikolai could ask her what was going on, she ran down the stairs and out the doorway.

  What?

  Weren’t they supposed to be tracking down a hairy escape artist?

  Nikolai shook his head as he jogged down the stairs. Didn’t take long to find her. Jun hadn’t gone far. Just to a nearby bench surrounded by redwood trees.

  He had been about to ask her if she wanted to be stuck in the 1960s with polio and gelatin molds, then snapped his mouth shut.

  Tears trickled down Jun’s face, and her shoulders shook in silent sobs. Her doe-like eyes, pained. She was so small and hurt.

  His limbs felt heavy as he swallowed. Nikolai wanted to give her a hug. But the last time h
e had tried to comfort her, Jun panicked.

  Tentatively, he slid onto the bench next to her. “Why are you crying?”

  Jun sniffed and wiped angrily at the tear marks on her face.

  “I killed her.”

  Nikolai stilled.

  He closed his eyes, trying to hold back the wave of disappointment rising within. When had she lost control of her magic? He hadn’t even noticed. “How did you kill her?”

  “I told her Bobbie Bear was nice. Why did I have to say that?”

  What? “That isn’t how killing works.”

  “She’s going to start dating him. They’ll get married. Try for years to have a kid. Then in her late forties, her stupid miracle baby is going to cause severe bleeding during labor.” Her chin trembled, and she pressed a fist to her lips.

  How could she possibly know all this about a woman she’d just bumped into? Another Asian woman, though. Her approximate height. Nikolai stared at her blankly before it clicked. “She’s your mother.”

  This must have been Jun’s first time meeting her. What was it her mother said that triggered the crying spell? I’ll see you around.

  Oh.

  “She was my mother. If she wasn’t, she’d still be alive.” Jun looked away as another tear trickled down her cheek.

  Slowly, like he was approaching a wild animal, Nikolai reached out and brushed it away. Tracing smooth skin, taking away the smallest bit of her hurt. “You can’t blame yourself. People are going to make their choices. You can’t control that. They are going to feel how they feel and do what they are going to do.”

  Jun just shook her head.

  How could he make her understand?

  Nikolai glanced at the burn scars on his forearm. “When my brother died, my mom couldn’t handle it. Took off on a country road and wrapped her car around a tree.”

  That made Jun frown at him. “Maybe it was an accident?”

  “She left a note.” I love you, and I’m sorry. Nikolai hadn’t told his father.

  Before it happened, his mom had gone quiet. Stopped crying. Stopped eating. Spent hours alone lying in bed with the lights off. As if Mikhail’s loss had sucked all the good out of her life.