by Rain Oxford
“Then she was given to Maseré?”
“Yes.”
“Fortunately, they love each other very much, but it took them some time to get there,” Darwin said, standing in the doorway of the study.
Vincent entered the room. “Remington decided not to come.”
Hunt turned to Flagstone, who looked nauseated. “What did you do to my daughter?”
“I’ll go talk to her.”
Actually, I didn’t think she wanted to talk to either of them.
That was when Langril pushed Vincent out of the doorway in a panic. “Krechea took Heather.”
“Are you sure?” Hunt asked.
“How did he get in?” I asked.
Langril handed Hunt a note. Hunt then scowled at him. “What does it say?”
I took the paper from him, peered at the foreign words, and passed it to Darwin. “It says that Devon, Langril, Hunt, and Vincent are to meet him in front of the tower with Langril’s heart if you ever want to see Heather again.”
Everyone stared at him for a minute. “When did you learn Enochian?” Langril asked.
“Well, I got your book. It has words in it,” Darwin answered. Langril nodded with understanding, as if that was how normal people learned a language.
“What’s his I.Q. again,” Vincent asked Hunt.
“He was never tested.”
“Actually, that’s not---” Darwin started.
“My daughter is missing,” Langril interrupted harshly.
“Okay, don’t panic yet,” I said. “He wants to kill you, and he can’t do that if he kills her first. I’ll have a vision and try to figure out his plan.”
“I thought we knew his plan.”
“Then to figure out his weakness.”
“Use the magic I gave you,” Hunt said, referring to the glass sphere.
“But I’m saving that to help Astrid.”
“I told you I would get Astrid,” Langril said.
“But I don’t trust you, especially now that I can’t kill you.”
“That’s right. If Krechea kills you, it would kill Henry,” Darwin said.
“Devon, I swear that I will save Astrid if you help me get Heather back,” Langril said.
At that point, Hunt, Vincent, Langril, and Darwin started arguing in German. I groaned and rubbed my forehead. Langril was the last person in the room I trusted, but his life was tied to Henry’s and I had to accept that for my friend’s sake. Besides, if Langril tried to screw me over, Henry would punish him.
I reached into my pocket for Hunt’s glass sphere. When I held it out, Henry addressed the room. “Everyone shut up and listen, because Devon is doing his plan thing!”
“I just break it?” I asked.
“Put on the ring first,” Vincent said.
I slipped on my vision ring and threw the sphere to the ground. It shattered and what looked like blue smoke floated lazily up into my ring. I moved my hand, but the smoke followed. My vision came on strong.
* * *
Krechea, still disguised as Vincent, was pacing around a large bed with black satin sheets and a heavy wooden frame. The room was ridiculously extravagant. The white carpet was plush and spotless, the walls were a deep wine color, and the furniture looked like it belonged in a designer magazine. Heather was bound and gagged in the middle of the bed.
“I don’t know why you had to make it so hard on yourself,” Krechea said. “The only one who needs to die is your father. I even tried to summon Astrid to offer her to Devon, but she has some sort of protection over her. Imagine my surprise when I couldn’t summon you, either. The master is the only one who can hide himself from me.” Her silence seemed to enrage him. After a few seconds, he stopped pacing, pulled out a knife, and aimed it at her stomach. “How did you stop my magic?!”
She twisted around, making unintelligible sounds.
“Oh, yes.” He took the gag out of her mouth and then pressed the blade against her stomach again. “Now tell me.”
“It’s the tattoos,” she said, trying and failing to keep the panic out of her voice. When he waited for her to continue, she looked down at herself. Krechea undid the buttons of her shirt to reveal an octagram around her bellybutton. “The tattoo itself is done under a ritual and then it’s swabbed with a special potion every seven hours for seven days. My father taught me and I taught Astrid. She did it in Dothra so you couldn’t use her against Devon and I did it when Devon and Vincent got me out so I couldn’t be called back.”
Krechea put away his knife and started pacing again.
“You would really save Astrid?”
“I’ve never had a problem with her; she would have been my best servant. I blame your father for losing my familiar, not Astrid.”
“But there must be more to it.”
“I have to stop her from destroying the tower.”
“Why? You want to return to Dothra?”
“Of course. After I get what I want, I will return to Dothra with enough magic and natural resources to sustain the world for eternity.”
“How will getting all four keys do that? Are you going to try to siphon power from Earth?”
“Earth is not that powerful. Your father spent his entire life researching world travel, but he never made it past traveling to Earth. He wrote that he believed there was a higher form of magic out there— a realm of power that Dothra could feed on endlessly. I have figured out the key to reaching it.”
“I don’t understand,” Heather said.
“You can ask your father if you ever see him again. He figured it out and tried to switch places with Astrid and destroy the tower himself. I was waiting.”
“Why would my father want to destroy the tower?”
“He has figured out a way to hide from death. When I reach the realm of higher magic, I will become more powerful than death. I will be a god and rule all five worlds. I will not allow the master to take Dothra from me.”
“So you’re going to kill him?”
“Not because of my goals. I’m going to kill him because he doesn’t belong in my world. He can kill all my followers he wants as long as I get the four keys gathered before the tower. Devon will be easy to convince, Vincent will follow him, and Logan will follow Vincent.”
“So you only kidnapped me to get my father here?”
“Of course. You’re no used to me.”
My vision changed to show two soul guards forcing a shadow walker to his knees before Rocky. I took off my ring.
“What did you find out?” Langril asked.
“That you’re a serious bastard, that he hates your guts, and that we cannot allow him to get everyone in front of the tower. He doesn’t know Heather has the key.” The relief on Langril’s face was instant. “How can he not know?”
“Heather is my daughter; she picks up magic well. After Kea killed her mother, I taught her how to hide her magic. I then told Logan, in confidence, that I took her magic, knowing Kea would overhear. As far as Kea can tell, she isn’t any more powerful than a human.”
“You should have done that with Devon,” Vincent said, glaring at Langril.
Langril scoffed. “Then I wouldn’t have been able to use him.”
“I need to get to the edge of the grounds, because there’s a… demon who needs to be… freed. This shit is weird.”
“I don’t know how many times we can say ‘welcome to the paranormal world’ before you understand that nothing is weird at this university,” Vincent said. He grabbed my shoulder and the shadows of the room converged around us.
We were only in the shadow pass for a split second, but it was long enough. I definitely wasn’t going to miss that “perk” of having the key. Vincent grunted and staggered when we returned to the world. “Are you okay?” I asked, ignoring the shadow walker who was forced to his knees at my feet by two soul guards.
“Yes, I’ll be fine. The brighter it is, the more it takes out of me,” he answered, indicating the bright afternoon sunlight. He pulled si
lver shackles out of his bag and secured the shadow walker. I drew my sword.
“I thought you weren’t going to kill him,” one of the soul guards said nervously.
“I’m not.” I focused heat into the blade until it glowed red. The shadow walker clenched his eyes closed. “This is going to hurt.” I stabbed it into his stomach. I could see the pain on his face, but he didn’t make a sound. After a moment, I pulled the blade out. Just like when I did it to Felicity, there was no blood.
His eyes widened as he looked down at himself. “I’m okay,” he said, shocked.
“Are you still under the Shadow Master’s control?”
“No. I’m free.” He looked up at one of the soul guards. “Is the true master really back?”
“Yes, he is. He wants us to stop the Shadow Master’s followers.”
Vincent took off the cuffs. “Thank you,” the shadow walker said to me, standing and bowing slightly. The three of them disappeared in a swarm of black shadows.
“I think when I go back to my old life of getting shot at and uncovering conspiracies, I might die of boredom.” I felt Vincent glance at me. “If,” I amended. Vincent grabbed my shoulder and the shadows wrapped around us very slowly. When they left us in Hunt’s office, Vincent was sweating.
“Did you find out how he got through my ward?” Hunt asked.
I shook my head.
“Because he’s more powerful than you, obviously,” Langril said. “Although that’s not saying much. A shadow bunny could make it past your wards.”
Hunt raised his hand in a threatening gesture and a spark of green lit in his hand. Before he could do anything, however, both Henry and Flagstone reacted simultaneously. Henry shoved Langril back, put himself in front of the professor, and snarled at Hunt. Flagstone, predicting Henry’s response, smacked Hunt’s hand down and stepped in between them.
With a small spark of light, the black leather couch became hot pink. Hunt gaped at his couch in horror and the room was suddenly as silent as a grave. “Sorry,” Darwin finally said, blushing.
“That is… fine,” Hunt said slowly, obviously lying. “I was getting tired of the black anyway. Can you change it back?”
“Not until everyone chills out. Dev, what else did you learn about the shadow man?”
“I figured out why he wants to bring all four keys together.”
“He told you?” Langril asked.
“The gnomes did.”
“There were gnomes there?” Vincent asked.
“No. When the gnome led me to my test to get the key, he said that the gods created four keys to control all six worlds.”
“But there are only five worlds,” Flagstone said.
“That we know of.”
“So one of the worlds is inaccessible?” Henry asked.
“It’s not inaccessible, though. Langril found out and tried to destroy the tower with him in it so that the four keys couldn’t be brought together.”
“I was going to get Astrid and Heather out first,” Langril said. I just wasn’t expecting Kea to be prepared. Then I had to stick around to make sure he didn’t destroy earth. Had I not gotten stuck in that prison, I would have been back and defeated him by now.”
“So what the hell happens when the keys are brought together?” Flagstone asked.
“It opens a fifth door, duh,” Darwin said.
Henry tucked his hand in his sleeve and slapped it over Darwin’s mouth. “Not helping. How does this change the plan, Devon?”
“I imagine whatever is on that other world, we don’t want the shadow man getting it. The advantage we have is that he thinks I have the key. How we can use that advantage, I’m not sure yet. Do you think the cuffs would work on him?”
“They use the person’s power against him, so it should,” Darwin said.
We had to explain the magical, power-neutralizing shackles to Langril and he thought it had a good possibility of working.
“So, I’ve got a plan, but there are a million ways for it to go wrong.”
“Sounds about normal,” Darwin said.
* * *
When I finished explaining the plan, everyone in the room had about the same amount of apprehensiveness on their faces, except for Langril, who didn’t appear to be bothered at all. Darwin poked him in the arm. “Professor, you need to look scareder than that or Devon’ll think you ain’t taking him seriously.”
“On the contrary, I think Devon’s plan is bound to be at least partially successful. I mean, what is the probability that everything will go wrong?”
“From a strictly mathematical standpoint, it’s fourteen points six percent. It’s indeterminate from a realistic perspective, because most of the components are dependent and how much they…” he trailed off when everyone stared at him. “That was a rhetorical question, wasn’t it?”
At that point, Ghost appeared on the back of the couch, looking even better than he had in my room. Vincent gaped. “What did you do to my familiar?”
The cat was almost calico in the way his fur ranged in different shades of brown. His fur had completely lost its patchiness and was now long and silky. Although his eyes were still mismatched, the scar on his face was gone. He purred and licked his paw.
“It was your healing potion that helped him.” When I pet him, he didn’t try to scratch me. “Ghost, can you get a letter to someone?” I sensed his mind trying to connect with mine and let him in.
“You know, nobody has ever asked me to do something. I would be glad to help. Thank you for saving my wizard; I know he was so lost and scared without me.”
Hunt gave me a small roll of paper and an old fountain pen. I wrote the letter as quickly and neatly as I could, which was neither quick nor neat, and handed it to Ghost. He took it in his mouth and vanished.
Langril had disappeared sometime while I was writing the letter. I expected him to try to change something in my plan and not tell me until it was too late. I wasn’t terribly worried, though; he wouldn’t cross me until his daughter was safe.
“What do you want us to do?” Henry asked, referring to Darwin and himself.
“You’re support. We can’t do much until---” I was interrupted as Rocky forced an image into my mind of Felicity. “Okay, she’s already here.”
Henry, Vincent, Hunt, and I got into Hunt’s SUV and drove to the edge of the campus. Felicity scowled at us as we got out. “I have a life, you know,” she said.
“What happens to that life if the shadow man returns?” When she didn’t say anything, I continued. “The four keys cannot come together before the tower. I want you to disguise yourself as Vincent to fool the shadow man.”
“Seriously? No way! He would kill me!”
“By the time he realizes it, we’ll be ready.”
She didn’t look convinced. “Ready how?”
* * *
It took a little convincing, and plenty of threatening, but Felicity finally gave in and spent the rest of the day learning to act like Vincent. The reason I chose my uncle to be the one to sit out was because Krechea spent months learning all there was to know about Hunt. Neither Hunt nor Vincent appreciated me pointing that out, but they agreed anyway.
I spent the day trying to prepare myself to test out my new immortality. Nevertheless, putting myself in a deadly, no-win situation was not something I could really prepare for.
Vincent found me in the library. I wasn’t looking at any books, I just didn’t think anyone would find me there. I wanted a moment alone before the war began, because I still wasn’t sure whose side I should be on. “I thought Felicity was learning to mimic you,” I said.
He nodded. “She can do that without me for a while. I wanted to see how you were doing.”
“It’s a little weird finding out that the shadow man has been impersonating you since I got the key. I should have asked more questions, I guess.”
“I should have been more open with you from the start,” he said. “Not even Logan knew it wasn’t me. I’m a very
private person, and that wasn’t fair to you or Logan. I’m not saying I’m going to change. It’s still who I am. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about you or trust you.”
“I know.” I thought I knew him more than a stranger, though.
“Not to change the subject or anything, but why did you give up the key?”
“It wasn’t worth the sacrifice,” I said. He looked relieved. “Why did you think I gave it up?”
“I always felt different after getting the key. Logan told me it was just that I was more powerful, but it was like there was a sinister presence sometimes. Since you got the full range of my father’s power, I worried that you might have developed some new powers that you would be better off without.”
“Like what?”
He hesitated before answering. “It doesn’t really matter now. If you hadn’t developed any when you had the key, you’re not going to now that you got rid of it.”
After everything he went through in the last few months, I didn’t want to push, so I let it go.
* * *
The time finally came for us to face Krechea. It wasn’t so much a set time as a mutual realization that there was no point in stalling. Hunt took me, Darwin, Henry, Flagstone, and Felicity to the tower. Darwin, having never killed a person, was at risk. Since Langril said he was able to hide Astrid when she was a baby, we did what we could to hide Darwin; we taped a blanket over him and Henry carried him over his shoulder. It seemed to work; there were no extra monsters reaching for us or rivers of lava. When I pulled the blanket off and asked Darwin if he was okay, he didn’t seem any worse for wear.
“I’m good. I don’t feel like I lost my soul or anything.”
“Why did you bring them?” Krechea asked, suddenly appearing in front of us. He still looked like Vincent.
“Because they’re my friends and they came to make sure you don’t try to kill me once you get what you want.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’re really going to do it?”
“You want to kill Langril and leave, right? If I fight you and lose, you’re going to kill Langril and leave. If I fight you and win, I’m going to absorb your power and then Langril will turn on me in order to get that power. You may be my enemy, but Langril is always going to be the bigger threat. I’m not opposed to you taking out that threat and leaving.”