Wizard Hall Chronicles Box Set

by Sheryl Steines

  “It does seem like a half-assed plan,” Spencer said through his sleeve.

  Annie pulled out a lump of fabric and handed it to Spencer. He unwrapped the object, revealing a second talisman, an exact copy of the one Lial carried in his field pack.

  “What do we have here?” Spencer asked as he held the talisman for Annie and Lial to see.

  Lial felt the talisman in his field pack. “The other one in my pocket is buzzing and jumping.” He summoned the talisman from his field pack, it visibly shook in his hand.

  “They’re reacting to each other? Maybe you should stand apart. That could be an issue,” Annie said.

  Both Lial and Spencer took a step back.

  “Maybe a little better,” Spencer said. Lial nodded in agreement. “One to get here and one to leave?” Spencer asked, snatching the talisman. He moved it around, looking at it from all sides, letting it rest in the palm of his hand.

  “Maybe you need both to enter the portal,” Lial suggested. “You’ve been reading up on portals. Anything about talismans?” he asked Annie.

  “Nothing yet, but then info on time portals is a bit limited. I find it weird that one was hidden in the house and the other out here,” Annie said.

  “You think it means they shouldn’t be stored together?” Spencer asked.

  “I’m not saying anything. Just noting that they weren’t found together.” Annie took back the talisman from Lial and hid it away in her field pack while Spencer holstered the other one in his own pack.

  “Anything else in that sack?” Spencer asked.

  “I think I’ve got…” Annie touched the food sack and the bread, and then gripped something hard and smooth.

  “A book,” she said. “A new book.”

  It was the kind of journal you could pick up at any department store or office supply store. It was black with a spiral binding, the label still attached. She opened the front cover.

  “It’s…” she began, quirking an eyebrow in confusion.

  “A diary?” Spencer asked, shaking his head. “Never mind. That doesn’t make sense.”

  “No.” She flipped through the pages. A map of the area, a drawing of Annie, an envelope stapled to the back cover.

  “What’s in there?” Lial asked.

  Annie explained the contents as she pulled open the envelope. “There’s several hundred in cash,” she said. “Someone here is helping him.”

  “Okay. It just doesn’t make sense. Why not just tell you that you have to go back, explain the events? Why all this trouble, why the Viking and demon?” Spencer asked.

  “Essentially, they’ve had eleven hundred years give or take to set the plan in motion. It must have been passed from generation to generation, everyone having a role in making this happen, and this is the direction they chose to go?” Lial commented.

  “This explains how they knew to come here, to this day and time. Not five years ago or ten years in the future. It explains how he knew where I’d be,” Annie said.

  She wrapped the animal skins and placed them in the bag and packed the notebook, shoving the sack back inside the bushes. She glanced at Lial. “I have a strange thought.”

  “They’re moving from past to present all the time to make this plan work?” Spencer joked.

  “Well, yeah. There’s a Gila Donaldson in the original coven. I assumed it was a family name. Maybe it’s not,” Annie said.

  “They had a millennium to get this right. It’s time travel. They could, at any point in time, go back and forth and make changes over the years,” Spencer said.

  “But how did they originally get here and back?” Lial asked.

  “They just needed one person to come forward, tell any of the coven members what happened, and set the plan in motion,” Spencer suggested.

  “Again to the correct time and place?” Annie asked. She crossed her arms against her chest. “I’d say the modern-day coven knew about the plan because they all have their own Book of Shadows, and the information was passed through time. They had to have gone back to make this plan work,” Annie suggested. She glanced at the portal where the magical energy shimmered in the air.

  “I’m not sure if it matters how they did it. We just need to get back and take care of the demons,” Spencer said.

  Annie glanced at him. “Problem is; I don’t trust the coven with the handling of this. I’d like to know how they did it because it might help us figure out how to reopen the portal.”

  “You’re not alone. I already told you this. You have all of us. We’re smart. We’ll figure out how to get you to the past and back to the future.”

  “Should we be allowed to, though?” Lial asked.

  Annie leaned against a tree. “If we go back, we can change something that shouldn’t be changed. Ryan’s checking with the council to see if we need permission. But the repercussions are starting to weigh on my mind.”

  Footsteps pounded across the earth, and trees shook as a heavy body ran toward them. They all turned their eyes to the trail and saw the Viking run from the trees. He caught their stares and slid to a stop where his eyes found Annie. It was the first time she had eyes on him in bright light and observed him as carefully as he did with her. She noted his tattered clothing that looked like the demon’s attire: the thin shirt hanging from his frame and the leather boots that were caked in mud, high as his knee, without a sole.

  He couldn’t take his eyes from her as he took a cautious step and then another. Annie summoned his pack and took a step to him.

  “What are you doing?” Spencer whispered loudly. He and Lial raised their palms as Annie, paying no attention to them, stopped two feet from the Viking.

  “Anaise,” the man said and pulled his sword from his sheath. Spencer and Lial took another step closer as the Viking dropped to one knee, lifted the sword with two hands and bowed his head. She glanced back at Spencer and Lial, confusion across both their faces. She shrugged and turned back to the man.

  When Annie hadn’t taken the sword, he glanced up at her. “Anaise,” he said and held the sword higher indicating she should take it.

  Annie recognized the sword, the long thin blade, the decorative hilt, reminiscent of the carving on the library doors. She took the sword from him, holding it in her right hand. She made sideways movements and stared at the thick blade, which looked shiny as if recently poured. She lunged to the side, feeling the balance of the blade, the lightness. The handle felt good in her hands, like it was created for her, and the magic inside tingled against her palm. Annie raised the sword above her head, much like she did in the carving on the library door. It felt like an extension of her arm.

  The man was still on one knee, still bowing his head. She put her arm down and tapped him on the shoulder. He glanced up at her, relief on his face. She pointed to herself. “Anaise,” she said and then pointed to him.

  “Kolgaar,” he replied.

  She nodded. “We should get him to Tartarus Prison. Keep him safe,” Annie said. Cautiously, Spencer and Lial used magical rope to tie his wrists behind his back. This time, the magic was strong and held. The man named Kolgaar was tightly restrained.

  “That’s odd. Cham and Gibbs said the magic didn’t work on him,” Lial said.

  Annie looked at the sword, touched the blade, and felt the slightest vibration from the metal. Spencer looked at her.

  “What?” Spencer asked.

  “What doesn’t he have now?” Annie asked.

  “The sword blocked the magic,” Spencer realized.

  The longer she held the sword, the more Annie could feel the magic hum through the metal. It vibrated against her skin, along her palm and up her arm. Lial, Spencer, and Kolgaar watched as Annie’s magic connected to the magically imbued sword. A soft golden mist billowed from her palm and wound its way around the blade like a snake.

  “Annie?” Spencer asked.

  She looked at him, her mouth agape, her eyes wide. A spark flew from her palm, singeing her skin. She dropped the sword in th
e dirt and glanced at her hand. A dull scent of burnt flesh filled her nose.

  Spencer ran to her as Lial guarded their “guest.” He looked at her hand, summoned a bottle of water and placed water on the burnt flesh, healing the wound.

  “I think the sword is yours,” he said.

  She nodded softly as the rain began to fall.

  *

  A thunderbolt flashed, sending a thick tree branch crashing to the ground. Wind blew the rain horizontally across the tiny island housing Tartarus Prison, pushing Annie and Lial off course when they landed.

  “You okay?” Lial shouted as he pulled his leg from the mud.

  “This is nuts!” Annie shouted through a thunderclap. She shook violently as the cold rain pelted her body.

  “Let’s go!” Lial reached for her hand. They ran from the only teleportation location on the island, the clearing at the end of the lane where Jordan Wellington, Princess Amelie’s boyfriend, was shot over a year ago.

  Sometimes Annie thought she saw his ghost meandering through landscape when she visited the prison. Other times, she vividly remembered the events of that day and her stomach would churn. Today she saw neither a ghost nor the memories with the rain pounding against her.

  Lightning flashed, and lit up the field beyond the clearing. Lial grabbed Annie’s arm. With her shorter legs, she had to run faster to keep pace with him. A cramp seized her side. Rain continued to deluge the island.

  The bird sanctuary that made up the tiny island hadn’t been developed. The narrow dirt paths that crisscrossed the island were covered in holes and thick with mud due to the storm. Annie’s foot splashed in a long pothole. She slipped, turning her ankle, and fell in the mud.

  Lial reached for her as another shot of lightning crossed the sky. Spencer and Kolgaar’s forms were visible at the opened gates of the prison.

  “Almost there!” Lial shouted.

  Annie hobbled after Lial. She lunged through the gates into the courtyard of Tartarus Prison. The gates slammed shut after them.

  The rain continued to batter them as they ran through the front doors. The reception area of Tartarus Prison was small; the only window was the front door. Bright overhead lights attempted to add cheer to the depressing location, but only illuminated their flaws: their muddy pants and shirts, their wet, limp hair. Annie shivered in the stone-lined entrance as a heavy stream of air blew from the air ducts.

  “Annie, Lial, here. For you,” said Vivian, the evening guard, as she handed them towels and dry prison jumpsuits.

  “Thanks.” Annie rubbed her thick hair with the skimpy towel and peeled off her wet jacket, leaving it on the cobblestone floor.

  “That’s some storm,” Vivian said as she glanced outside the small glass door. The courtyard was nearly empty. One lone tree stood at the edge of the yard. Whatever leaves had grown on it had been ripped off in the wind.

  “Yeah. What a mess. Where’d they take Kolgaar the Viking?” Annie asked as she wrapped the towel around her neck.

  “The first room on the left,” Vivian told her.

  Annie and Lial took turns casting a jinx into the security box on the reception desk. When the gate opened, they entered and headed to the bathrooms for a quick change. Leaving her clothes to dry on the stall door, she exited at the same time as Lial.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah.” She hobbled across the hall. “Just need some ice.”

  She stood outside the room as Spencer secured Kolgaar to the chair by his feet and across the chest, leaving his arms free. Once the Viking was secured, Spencer sat across from him and ran his towel through his hair.

  “How was the trip?” Annie asked as she sat beside her partner. He dropped the towel on the floor.

  “Teleporting’s not his thing,” Spencer said. Annie looked at Kolgaar and offered a smile. The Viking sat patiently, his face emotionless.

  “But traveling through a time portal is?” Annie joked.

  Spencer shrugged. “He hasn’t responded when I speak with him. I find it odd they didn’t send him with some form of a translator.”

  “Because this whole thing makes sense,” Annie said.

  Lial brought in a tray with food and placed it on the table. Kolgaar watched.

  Annie pulled the sword from her waist and lay it on the table, pushing it to him. “Do you speak English?” she asked.

  He didn’t respond. She pushed the sword closer and asked him again. Still he didn’t respond. “It repelled magic. I thought it might work as a translator,” Annie said and shrugged.

  “Gibbs and Cham found nothing on him. Maybe there’s something in his bag,” Lial suggested. Annie summoned Kolgaar’s pack and tossed it on the table. He glanced at the bag, pulled it close, and reached inside. Not finding what he was looking for, he turned the bag over and dumped out the contents. Knifes, animal skins, food. Kolgaar looked at them and said something in a language none of them understood. Frustrated, he banged his hand against the table. The food bounced, and Annie jumped.

  Kolgaar held his hands about four inches apart and repeated what he had said.

  Annie mimicked his hands with her index finger and thumb. She looked at Spencer and Lial.

  “The talismans?” Lial asked.

  Annie shrugged and summoned the one she carried. Kolgaar’s eyes widened; she passed the talisman to him. He stared at the statue with interest, pointed to the hole at the tip of its hat, and held the statue against his chest.

  “Like a necklace.” Annie summoned a roll of twine that she kept in her field pack, unrolled a strand about a foot long, cut it from the bolt, and placed the string through the hole on the talisman. She handed him the rope.

  Instinctively, he tied the rope around his neck and looked at her expectantly.

  Annie summoned the tray and slid it to him. “Eat something,” she offered.

  He nodded and pulled a sandwich from the plate, staring at the oddly constructed food. He pulled the first layer of bread off, took a sniff, and placed the bread back. He took a small bite and chewed and then another bite, quickly eating the sandwich. He reached for another, looking at Annie. “Go ahead,” she said.

  They watched him eat two more sandwiches before he placed his hand the talisman and pointed to Annie.

  Spencer summoned the second talisman and handed it to her. Preparing the second, she slipped it over her head.

  “Anaise. I have come a long way to find you,” he said. Spencer and Lial glanced at Annie.

  “Was that in his language or modern English?” she asked as she pointed to him.

  “English,” Lial and Spencer said in unison.

  “You understand us too?” Annie asked.

  He nodded. “I do. This.” He pointed to his talisman.

  “How can they hear you?” Annie asked.

  Kolgaar glanced at her, then at Lial and Spencer, and shook his head. “I am not magical. I do not know how it works. The coven will know.”

  Annie glanced at the talisman around her neck; a statue to conjure magic, to summon demons, to translate the differences in language separated by thousand years. It had been so much work to bring him here, to have a place to run the operation, to take her back to the past. They could have sent anyone else back in time to stop the demons, once they knew how to kill them.

  Why me? Why now?

  What was it about Annie at this moment in her life that they would come for her now? Why not two years ago or in five years?

  Sometimes she felt like the weight of the world lay on her shoulders, pressing down on her, and whatever move she made next would be the last move she ever made. She had blamed herself for Princess Amelie returning as a vampire, for the loss of the Black Market, for the wizard world almost being thrown into a magical war.

  Is this a test? What if I fail?

  “Annie? Are you okay?” Spencer asked. She glanced up from the talisman. It had drawn her in.

  “Yeah. I’m fine.” She looked at Kolgaar. “We need to prepare to go back.
I wasn’t expecting to find you today. I don’t even know what date to go back to,” Annie said.

  Kolgaar was restless and squirmed against the metal chair. “What do you mean you need to prepare to go back? We don’t have time for this. They should have prepared you. You should know how to do this and when to go back!” By the time he finished speaking, he had raised his voice to a shout.

  Annie balled her hands into tight fists. She took a deep breath. “Did they tell you that? Did they tell you I would know what to do?”

  “Yes. They did. They called on your ancient ones and read it in the fire. They told them it was you and that you would know what to do. We need to go back. My people are dying because of what…” Kolgaar meant to say something but refrained.

  At his outburst, Lial placed his hand on Annie’s shoulder as if protecting her. “Because of what?” Annie asked cautiously.

  Kolgaar shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. We need to leave. Now. They are waiting,” he implored.

  “Listen carefully. This is time travel. We can go back at any time. I just need you to be honest and give me everything you know so we can figure out how to help,” Annie suggested.

  “We respectfully request that you come with me to my time and rid the land of the demons,” Kolgaar pleaded.

  “Why Annie? Why not any witch from the future?” Spencer asked.

  Kolgaar shook his head. “I do not have an answer for you. The coven…” he grimaced at the mention of the coven. “All that I know is that the old witch came to Jorvik and told us she saw it in the fire. Her face.” He pointed to Annie with his free hand.

  “How did they find her? How did they know what year she lived?” Spencer asked.

  Kolgaar looked at the pile of items he had with him and pulled out the notebook. He slid it across to Annie.

  “I saw this already. Did I miss something?” Annie asked.

  “It was given to me by someone from your time. She gave me what I needed,” he explained.

  The wizard guards exchanged concerned glances. “Did anyone odd come to visit you in Jorvik? Clothes like ours? A funny way of speaking?” Spencer demanded.