Spell Song: An Enchanting Urban Fantasy

by J. F. Forrest

  She couldn’t hear anything that was going on in the next room, but the situation began to clear up as the woman directed the scene. They had strapped Carter into a chair and moved across the room away from Ricky, Scott, and the other ancient guy who still looked unconscious. The garden gnome stuck a pair of earplugs into his white-tufted ears and then began flipping pages in the leather book.

  Broken sunglasses guy mouthed something to the gnome and the tiny man tossed a pair of earplugs to him. He stuck them into his ears and turned to face RayRay. She watched as Elke leaned over the table and flipped a few pages. She was discussing something with the small creature and then scowled at him and smacked the back of his head.

  Elke turned back to RayRay and directed him to start playing. It was an odd scene and it only became...odder. Through the glass, Sami couldn’t hear anything at all, but she could see it. The magic was so much stronger here and it began to flow out of the artifact in waves of purple, red, and blue. It swirled around the room like thick cigar smoke with no particular direction. Then Elke took her wand and traced lines from the violin toward Ricky, then Scott, and last, almost as an afterthought, toward the older man too. The drifting magic seemed to link to each of them and pulse like a hose connected to their heads. Sami got the distinct sensation that the power was not going into them, but coming out.

  When she was sure she had established the connections, Elke drew another line from the violin…to herself. This conduit was definitely pulling magic into her.

  Like a surreal scene from some cheesy 1980’s werewolf movie, her face began to shift, bulging in and out, changing. She had looked to be about twenty as it was, but the signs of age on her face and neck began to disappear like someone was photoshopping her right before Sami’s eyes.

  The violin was reversing the woman’s age. Sami had never seen it do anything like that before…this was bad. Elke was using a power that felt slimy and cold to change the nature of the magic coming out of the artifact. Not content to only have her aging slowed down, she was using dark magic—a very dark magic—to reverse it.

  Suddenly, the old man, who now looked gray all over, slumped over and his chair spilled him out onto the floor. His bony wrists had slipped free of his bonds.

  “Oh, my God!” Doris cried out, “That’s my Arthur!”

  Sami could see the man’s face. Doris had to be confused. That wasn’t her ex-husband, it appeared to be Artemis Baen, the leader of The Farm…but he looked older, like, a hundred years older. Actually, right now, he looked dead.

  “Doris, I think you’re mistaken.” Sami felt a tinge of something odd creeping into her mind…a sort of understanding, “That’s Artemis Baen. He runs The Farm, the commune out where I grew up.”

  “Dearie, I know my husband when I see him,” she said, her eyes full of tears. “That’s Arthur.”

  The beams of magic continued to pulse in a clear pattern out of the men sitting in the chairs and into the violin RayRay was playing. The beam continued out of the artifact and into Elke with a different hue and wavelength. The streams were still flowing from Scott and Ricky, but they had stopped coming out of the old man Artemis…or Arthur.

  And the truth dawned on Sami.

  “She’s stealing the life-force out of them. The artifact is a conduit. By itself, it’s powerless, but RayRay’s playing turns it into some sort of pipeline for youth.”

  Sami glanced down at the ancient man still lying on the floor. No one attended him. In fact, no one paid any attention to him at all.

  “Is he—” Doris started with a tremor in her voice. “Is he…dead?”

  Sami swallowed hard, “I’m not sure.”

  The pieces of the Artemis puzzle began to come together in Sami’s mind and she realized that he had left Doris years ago to pursue not a Hooters waitress, but the artifact. Somehow, he’d discovered the violin and its power, and had even been the beneficiary of a tiny bit of its ability to halt the aging process. No doubt, he’d never dreamed it could reverse the age of the witch conducting the show on the other side of the glass.

  Scott’s head lolled to one side like dead weight. Sami could see his cheek, wrinkled, splotchy, gray…old.

  “NO!” she yelled, “It’s killing Scott too!”

  She felt the power of her magic searing into her hands and flowing up her arms. Her eyes glowed bright orange and she snapped the bands holding her wrists. Something had happened inside her while they’d been captives here. All at once, she realized she was completely recharged. The Caulla under Haw Ridge had filled her like a battery…or…more like a nuclear reactor.

  She stood and before she completed the thought, her hands were in front of her.

  “Protectas forceras.”

  The blast that came out in a blinding orange and yellow flash of light whumped into the wall of glass between their prison and the concert room vaporized into a million tiny specks. This time it was different. Elke had unwittingly brought back all of her memories of her training and Sami was able to cast the spell with a direct target in mind, while shielding those she didn’t want harmed.

  Elke slammed back into the far wall and pinned there for a microsecond, surprised by the sudden wall of magic exploding from the next room. Sami jumped through the opening and raced toward Scott. Terror, shock, and tears filled her eyes as she came around to face her friend, her boyfriend. He looked like he was ninety years old. His boyish good looks had been replaced by what Sami imagined his father…or what his grandfather might look like. A moan escaped her mouth as he opened his eyes. They were pale and watery, with cataracts covering them.

  “Sami,” he groaned, “I feel like I been 'et by a wolf and shat over a cliff.”

  “It’s okay, Scott. I’m going to figure out how to reverse this.”

  “Reverse what?”

  “Your age…you’ve—”

  She stopped and realized he couldn’t see himself, not even his arms that were still tied behind his back.

  “We’ll get you back to normal.” She put a hand on his wrinkled cheek.

  “Darlin’,” Ricky moaned, “would you mind spreading’ some of that normal around to me too?”

  She opened her mouth to answer but stopped, startled to see that Ricky hadn’t aged much. He only looked five years older…or extremely hung-over.

  “Ricky, how in the world are you not—”

  She didn’t say the last part, but only nodded at Scott.

  “Deaf as a board in my left ear and almost as bad in my right from too much Whitesnake. He turned his head to the side. “All I did was keep putting my bad ear on that side where RayRay was playin’. I think it helped slow the effect down.”

  A quick glance around and she saw that the gnome, the broken sunglasses guy, and Carter were all lying on the ground under a blanket of glass. And then came the pain. Sami felt a white-hot spear of pain lance into her back.

  “You,” a voice behind her hissed, “bitchhhhh!”

  The voice. Sami recognized the voice from her dreams. Elke, the witch, or whatever she was, had been haunting her dreams. She didn’t know how, but that could wait. Right now, she had to deal with the flaming lance that was still knifing into her. With effort she didn’t know she had, she rolled over to face Elke.

  She had the fresh face of a teenager and was grinning through gritted teeth. Her hair hung down over her forehead in strands that almost looked like tiny snakes. Sami saw that the magic stabbing her was coming out of the wand in an orange wavy line. It had her pinned to the ground and as Elke twisted her wrist, the pain intensified.

  Must…get…it…out, Sami thought of the magic, certain it was mortally wounding her.

  xxxOrin Nightmander, Wizard of Azuria, officer of the Knoxville branch of the Paranormal Defense Agency was deep in thought. He was pondering what message he might send to Sami when his phone jolted him with a blaring ring. Seeing a familiar number, he connected.

  “Who’s this?” a harried voice demanded. “Someone who can help Sami, I h
ope!”

  “Who are you? You’re with Samantha?”

  “My name is Carter Cross, an agent with…well, that doesn’t matter now, but we won’t last long if she doesn’t get help fast.”

  “Tell me what’s happening!” Orin shouted. “I can help!”

  “There’s a woman here, I think she’s a witch. She’s got Sami pinned down with some kind of magic wand with fire coming out of it. It looks like she’s shooting magic in about three different directions.”

  “Does it look like waves of light?” Orin asked.

  “Huh? I don’t underst—”

  “Calm down, man, does it look like the light is coming out of her wand in pulses, like waves?”

  “Uh, sure, I guess so.”

  “Why aren’t you helping her?”

  “I’m kinda tied up at the moment. I have a gun tucked in my sock, but—”

  Orin heard a blast and the phone crackled and went dead. The wizard threw his phone down and picked up the bean.

  He had almost swallowed it when someone tapped on the driver’s side window. Pleased to see that the White Cloaks had indeed showed up, he stepped out of the truck. After giving them the short version of what was happening and letting one of them verify that they couldn’t get past the warding, he told them what he was planning with the fireflies.

  “Ahh, a nuntium pill.” Bekkan scratched his chin. “But what message will your bugs send?”

  “I don’t know,” Orin admitted. “I’ve been trying to think of something, but I’m not sure what power Sami has at her disposal.”

  “She has great power,” Bokaj nodded, still rubbing his throat that the ward had squeezed shut as he tried to push through.

  “And,” added Bekkan, “she has a TikTuk.”

  Orin’s mind raced. He’d heard tales of the TikTuk creatures, but had never thought they actually existed. Even Azurians had fairy tales.

  “So, she can…speed up?”

  “Vastly so.”

  “For how long?”

  “In most circumstances, less than a minute.” Bekkan shrugged. “But sitting on top of a Caulla, could be longer. No one knows for sure.”

  “If she can go faster than this witch, she could—”

  Orin stopped and tossed the bean into his mouth. In an instant, it seemed to grow legs and climb into the back of his throat. He almost panicked thinking it meant to go all the way to his stomach, but it stopped below his epiglottis at the top of his vocal cords. It felt like he was going to throw up, but he suppressed the urge to vomit. It was not a good time to be sick.

  He gurgled the words out, but they didn’t seem to come out of his mouth. Instead, the donisi pill absorbed them.

  “Samantha Dawn Proctor, 4/13/55,” he choked and added, “use your TikTuk. Attack between the waves.”

  The bean seemed satisfied and climbed up out of his throat and landed in his hand. He leaned out of the truck and vomited on Bokaj’s shoes and the bottom of his robe.

  “Sorry,” he wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

  “I just had this dry cleaned.”

  “Send me a bill.”

  Orin took the pill between his fingers and smashed down hard on it until it began to ooze neon green fluid. He let it drip down onto the top of the Mason jar holding the lightning bugs over one of the air holes he’d punched in the lid. The liquid dripped inside the glass and the fireflies seemed drawn to it. He couldn’t be sure, but it looked like they were drinking it. They began to flash and soon were blinking in unison.

  “They have the message.” Bekkan nodded toward the silo. “Release them.”

  Orin took a deep breath and unscrewed the lid. The fireflies came out of the jar in a random scramble and didn’t seem interested in flying toward the silo at all.

  “Drat,” Orin muttered in resignation. “It didn’t work.”

  “Wait. Watch.” Bokaj held up a finger.

  The fireflies joined a larger swarm of the flashing bugs, none seeming to have any direction floating around the nearby trees. Then suddenly, a group of twelve or more lined up single file and began to laser their way toward the concrete wall. The guards at the gate watched them pass with curiosity, but nothing more. Just a bunch of bugs.

  23

  A Message For Sami

  Former agent, Carter Cross, was talking to someone via his Bluetooth earpiece who he thought might somehow have a chance of helping Sami when he felt a sledgehammer of pain slam into his shoulder. He rolled forward, tumbled out of his chair, and sprawled on the floor with his butt in the air. The line went dead as he fell. Crap, there goes that chance.

  “Who the hell you talkin’ to?” Agent Seville was standing over him in a flash, gun smoking.

  I’m shot, Carter realized. His face pressed against the stark white industrial tile. Dark red blood oozed out in a puddle around him and he wondered if Seville had hit an artery. The pain was far more intense than he’d ever imagined, but in his prone position, he realized his hands were near his ankle. Under his left pant leg, he had a small two shot derringer. If he could get to it…

  Seville’s boot drove into his ribs and Carter was sure he felt one crack. He rolled over and his legs stretched out putting his pistol out of reach. Carter was laying on his back, hands behind him, still bound, looking up at the barrel end of Seville’s Glock.

  “I’ve been waiting to do this for a long time,” the man behind the sunglasses sneered, lowering his gun at Carter’s head.

  All around them drifted the sound of RayRay’s violin playing and the crackle of magic sizzling through the air. None of it seemed directed at either of them and for the most part they were being ignored. Elke had her back turned and beneath her feet, screaming in pain, laid Sami.

  With a heave, Carter raised his legs and kicked up hard. They connected with the barrel of Seville’s gun as he squeezed the trigger. The blast shattered an overhead fluorescent light and all the other lights in the room went out in shower of sparks. To say it was dark would be a gross misstatement. Flashes of blue and purple and orange and red streaked across the room as Elke continued to wave her wand back and forth between RayRay, the men in the chairs and Sami. She was fast. Carter wondered how the hell she could twitch that stick around so fast. Somehow, he knew that was the key, but what could he do?

  For a moment, Seville was stunned. He wobbled backward, blinded. He can’t see, Carter thought, still has his stupid sunglasses on. He rolled hard to the side as Seville stumbled around trying to get his bearings. Carter banged into the table and saw Finnegan cowering under it. He was quivering with fear and his eyes latched onto Carter’s.

  “You help me, I help you,” he said to the gnome.

  Finnegan Hobgood nodded vigorously and pulled a tiny knife from his belt. In seconds, Carter felt his hands freed from the zip ties. He grabbed the small pistol from his sock and whirled around, but it was too late. Seville had recovered and had his gun pointed at his head.

  “Freeze, asshat,” he growled.

  For a long second, Carter gave serious thought to pulling his trigger and taking his chances that Seville would miss in the darkened room. But if he got killed, Sami would die. Her screams had turned into low moans and sobs. A tiny, furry hand tapped his face. With all that was going on around them he thought it would be impossible to be surprised. Well, I’ll be, he thought, is that a squirrel monkey?

  And that’s when they came floating in to distract him, a straight line of about twenty fireflies. They drifted past Seville’s face and both men turned and watched them float toward Elke and circle Sami’s head.

  Her head was screaming in pain so much that she’d forgotten the stabbing pain in her chest. Elke was still standing over her surging a sword of magic into her torso. I’m dead, she thought, we’re all dead. Her eyes flitted to RayRay, then Scott, Ricky, and Artemis lying on the floor nearby. Sami could feel the power rising through the floor into her body from the Caulla deep beneath them. She tried again and again to attack Elke, but she wasn’t pow
erful enough. The strobe of dark magic coming from her wand was too strong and she knew she was going to die soon.

  Then came the flashing right in front of her eyes.

  ARE YOU SAMANTHA PROCTOR?

  Well, this was it, Sami was sure she’d snapped and was hallucinating.

  She tried to blink away the message in front of her, but it persisted.

  ARE YOU SAMANTHA DAWN PROCTOR? BORN APRIL 13th, 1955?

  “Yesssss,” she heard her voice whisper as if from down in a deep well.

  WE HAVE A MESSAGE FOR YOU.

  Sami waited, nothing happened.

  “Spit it out,” she wheezed.

  The impossible message in light began to type out in front of her. She wondered if anyone else could read it.

  MY NAME IS ORIN NIGHTMANDER. I’M JUST OUTSIDE THE TOWER, TRYING TO GET IN, BUT THERE IS POWERFUL MAGIC KEEPING ME OUT. YOU MUST FIGHT THE WITCH.

  I can’t, Sami thought as tears stung her eyes, she’s too strong.

  SHE MAY BE FAST, BUT YOU ARE MUCH MORE POWERFUL THAN SHE WILL EVER BE. YOU CAN BEAT HER.

  Sami was sure she was fading fast now and this was the working of her shattered consciousness. But the next message snapped her back to reality.

  USE YOUR TIKTUK. ATTACK THE WITCH BETWEEN THE WAVES.

  And then the flashing lights disbanded into the random blinking of a group of synchronous fireflies. Elke seemed to pause and inhale, drawing in her power for whatever final attack she had planned for Sami. The next few seconds were a blur.

  In the lull of the orange lance stabbing into Sami, Mikki leapt out from under the table. Her tiny paw-like hands wrapped around Sami’s neck and the world whooshed in the familiar time-warp effect the TikTuk had on her.

  The world froze…or nearly froze. The scene in front of her played out, as Scott might’ve said, slower than a month of Sundays.

  The fireflies were in mid flash. The gnome had leapt onto Agent Seville’s leg and jabbed his tiny pin-knife into the man’s calf. Carter started up in a crunch position, both hands on a small gun, aimed at Seville’s head. He had already pulled the trigger and Sami could see the bullet inching its way toward the man’s sunglasses.