Wizard Hall Chronicles Box Set

by Sheryl Steines

  “I want to make conditions to that,” Ryan called out. All five hundred Wizard Council members turned their attention to Ryan.

  He said, “I think that there should be restrictions to this. Annie’s contact must be limited to the Vikings and to the coven. Annie should in no way be permitted to interfere in any other plan or scheme, only what is required to rid the demons from England.”

  There was a short discussion amongst the council. James used his gavel to bring order to the room. “I agree with those conditions. I call the vote. Please complete your vote in your book at your seat.”

  Annie could hear some discussion, most were scrawling their notes inside their magical books linked to the original beside James. When the witch or wizard was finished, they lit up the crystal at their place. When all crystals were lit, James opened the book. “There’s a tie, 250 to 250.”

  Annie exchanged a worried glance with Cham.

  James wrote something in the book and lit his crystal. When he was done with the tie breaking vote, he said, “251 votes for yes, 250 votes for no. Annie Pearce will lead a small group of wizard guards to ninth-century England to fulfill this prophecy. Meeting adjourned.”

  *

  It was late in the day when Annie finally left the special council meeting. While most departments were winding down for the day, she still had things to do and headed to the telecommunications department, not to speak with her favorite computer hacker, but to get a specific supply for her trip.

  A special support team had been set up adjacent to the telecommunications department that helped wizard and witches obtain necessary items to assist with their jobs.

  The Office of Special Requests worked in conjunction with the telecommunications department to help create nonmagical birth certificates and passports, police or other office identification, driver’s licenses, bank records—any paperwork that a magical didn’t necessarily have but might need in order to perform his or her duties. It was also a bank that had a complete collection of currency, where Spencer had gone when he and Annie were in France several months prior.

  Any of the items in this department required management approval. She looked at her request form, signed by Cham and sighed as she lay it on the counter.

  “Hi, Bertha,” Annie said.

  “Annie.” She nodded and reached for the request form. “Just avrum?” she asked.

  “Just avrum.” Annie smiled.

  Bertha frowned. As the department manager, she had been to the meeting. “I don’t know how I feel about you going to the past. A lot could go wrong,” she said.

  “I know.” Annie watched at Bertha placed a finger in the blood lock and opened a walk-in bank vault. She returned several minutes later with a leather pouch filled with gold coins.

  “I voted no,” Bertha said as she slid the pouch through and opening in the window.

  “That’s why we vote. Everyone has a voice and the majority in this instance allowed for a time portal.” Annie picked up the bag, the coins jingled.

  “You be safe, okay,” Bertha said.

  “I promise. In and out. Nothing else,” Annie said and waved, leaving Bertha to her books and figures.

  *

  Cham poured another cup of coffee he didn’t really want. It merely gave him something to do and was warm on his cold hands. It left his stomach feeling nauseous, and yet he took another sip.

  “I got your message,” Graham Lightner said as he stepped inside the long narrow cubicle and took a seat.

  Cham drummed his fingers on the desk and put his mug on the blotter.Graham swallowed, his jaw tensed. “She went, fought, and killed the demons. All her interactions in the past created the future, our present.” Graham sighed and continued. “Time has since caught up to the moment she was summoned to the past. Since she doesn’t know what she did and does something different, it could potentially change everything. Even the most innocuous incident. I’m hoping Ryan’s conditions will be enough.” He was nearly whispering.

  Cham let out the breath he had been holding. “So like the butterfly effect? If she steps on a butterfly, she’ll change the future?” Cham asked.

  Graham shook his head. “No. What if they meet someone they weren’t supposed to meet? What if they brought with them an illness and passed it on? To a future leader. Or if someone dies because Gibbs and Brite are there and they weren’t originally there?”

  Cham’s hand trembled as he held the book he was reading. “I would have sent her back with help. Regardless of what the prophecy said.”

  “I would assume that as well. So realistically, I’m not worried about Gibbs and Brite. To get you up to speed, we’ve been keeping an eye history books. The problem is, we think if something changes it will be a collective memory shift and we won’t know it’s happening,” Graham admitted.

  Cham sat thoughtfully carefully weighting his words. “We… I didn’t think about that.”

  Graham laughed. “What do you think I’m here for? I keep the world moving as it was. I have an idea about that.” Graham reached out and dialed his phone, placing it on speaker.

  “Hey, Graham. What’s up?”

  Cham recognized Bucky’s unmistakable voice.

  “I’m here with Cham explaining the situation. Do you have a minute?” Graham asked.

  “I do. We’ve been watching for something to happen as well. But you know the situation,” Bucky said.

  Cham sat at the edge of his chair. “Okay. So, what do you think?”

  “This is the deal,” Graham said. “Energy, magical and otherwise, is all around us. While none of us seemed aware of time portals, we’re assuming we can travel in time because that pocket of energy still exists. People, places, the ghosts of the past, are all around us. We tap into that, open a portal, and walk through. That’s oversimplification, but that’s the general idea. With me so far?”

  Cham nodded.

  “I’m good,” Bucky said.

  “The first changes in history will be the first days, weeks, and months following whatever they do to change history.” Graham stood up and began to pace from the wall to the desk. After two laps, he stopped and bent over the phone. “Whatever history is changed, the corresponding written and collective world knowledge will change. We won’t know it.”

  Cham nodded.

  Graham sat back down, crossing and recrossing his legs while he waited for Bucky to stop typing and for Cham to take a steady breath.

  “What if sending them through the portal changed history in the way it should have been? Maybe it was bad before and we just made it better?” Bucky asked.

  Graham glanced at the phone. “We wouldn’t know that either,” Graham admitted.

  “It’s sounds like we’re screwed either way,” Bucky said.

  “Annie has no choice but to go through the portal because there are no regenerating demons in this present,” Graham said.

  “So my tracking history won’t do anything useful. How do you suppose we track the changes?” Bucky asked with worry in his voice.

  “We know for certain that they’ll be regenerating demons,” Graham suggested.

  They could hear Bucky typing on his keyboard. “Good news. Assuming they’d be overrunning England first, I just checked: there are no regenerating demons reported yet,” he said.

  Cham turned to the book shelf that lined his back wall and searched for a tome. It was thick and covered in worn leather like most of the books he had shelved.

  “Is it safe to say that all history books in the world are tied to actual history? That, as history changes, all the history books, all books about history will change with it?” Cham looked at Graham for confirmation.

  “That’s the assumption.” Graham looked at the history book Cham retrieved.

  The World History was a school book of nonmagical history as it was woven with magical history, a full review of all the events that had taken place since the beginning of written time.

  “So, Cham just pulled down his nonmagic
al history book, the one we all used in school. We had an idea, but honestly, we’re not sure if it will work.” Graham grabbed the book. “We think we can lock the book so to speak, so what’s in here won’t change if the rest of history changes.”

  “Actually. we have that book online now. We can lock it there and I can write a quick algorithm to look for changes against that book,” Bucky said.

  “We’re pushing for them to leave tomorrow. Can you do it by then?” Cham asked concerned.

  “It would have been great to know this sooner, but I can have the whole team on it and have it ready tomorrow morning,” Bucky said. “My only question is, what would happen to the magical and other energy that we’ve created here and now if the history changes? Will alternate worlds pop up?” Bucky asked.

  Graham glanced at the phone, his eyebrows raised. “Alternate realities.” He bit his lower lip while he thought and solution to the problem.

  “I’ll tell you what. That’s a good theory. I wonder if we can track the energy of alternate worlds. But, for now. I think that’s getting too deep into this. I think what you should do, Bucky, is create the algorithm. Don’t you already have software to track anomalies? Things that seem weird?” Graham asked.

  “We do. We’ll watch that and look for strange energy spikes. You lock the paper version of the book and send me the spell. I’ll lock the online version. Scanning the internet will be faster. And I’ll look for the demons,” Bucky said.

  They said goodbye and left Bucky to search for anything “weird.”

  “He’s right. We could’ve used more time.” Graham said.

  “It’s just happening so fast. I was hoping we could have avoided sending them,” Cham admitted.

  “I’ll take the book, if that’s okay?”

  Cham nodded and watched the opening of his cubicle long after Graham had left the department.

  *

  Annie and Ryan were the first to arrive in the fifth floor conference room. She stood at the large window and stared at the street below. Cars stopped and started as the traffic flowed in a choppy manner, as was usual for downtown Chicago.

  The sun, low in the horizon, cast an orange glow across the buildings. Employees left their jobs for the evening, streaming out of the buildings for restaurants or home. They were completely unaware that a time portal would be opened within hours and that a witch was heading to the past to save them from demons that hadn’t been seen in centuries.

  Footsteps crossed the carpeting, and chairs were pulled from around the table. Cham touched her shoulder. “You okay?”

  She glanced at him. “Are you?”

  They sat in the waiting chairs: Cham, Gibbs, Brite, Lial, Ryan, and James McIntosh. Annie sat in between Cham and James, feeling nauseous; it was really happening.

  “This is for you,” James said as he slid a scroll to Annie. She unrolled the parchment:

  Anne Elizabeth Pearce has been given permission by the Wizard Council of America to open a time portal. Her orders are to return the Viking to his time and eliminate the regenerating demons in the past.

  Annie glanced at James. “I would have been okay if you didn’t give permission.”

  “I suspect that is true.” James smiled and patted her hand.

  “It doesn’t say the demon. Might I ask why?” Annie asked.

  James glanced at Gibbs and nodded. Gibbs said, “I requested that we only bring back the Viking. The demon is too unpredictable. I expect we’ll be performing some spell to kill them. If it works, it should kill the demon at Tartarus. If not, we’ll shoot it with fire when we get back,” Gibbs said.

  As the minutes ticked away on the clock, Annie felt time running out. It had become fact, that she would be traveling to the past to kill the demons. She had been so preoccupied with figuring out how to get back, it had left her little time to figure out what she would actually do once she got there.

  Annie focused on Cham, who handed her a sheet of paper. “I consulted with the law department. You don’t need permission from the Wizard Guard in England because you are going at the request of the coven. Not to mention, you’ll be there at a time when there was no Wizard Council. On the advice of the law department, I did let the British Wizard Council know what is going on,” he said.

  “And?” Annie asked curiously.

  “I think they were a little taken back that one of their wizard guards wasn’t called to do this. I gave them a copy of the file and reminded them that the coven of the ninth century became our original Wizard Council. I think that eased their dismay a bit,” Cham said.

  “Do they have an expert in English magical history?” Annie asked.

  “Actually, they do. They offered to send someone with knowledge of the coven. I thanked them but said no. I worry that working with someone you don’t know in this situation would be more difficult. You wouldn’t have time to form a trust bond, and that could put you all in danger. They agreed with that. But they did send Lial some interesting things that he can explain to you,” Cham said as he pointed to Lial.

  “I’ve been pulling maps for several hours, but I haven’t found anything as comprehensive as these.” He pulled several scrolls, unrolling them and flattening them against the table. “There is an original map that looks like it’s from about 866, which is the later part of the ninth century. They also sent names, dates, events. It’s the research they have on that original coven. There’s nothing about you, but it may offer some help.” He slid three parchments to Annie. She looked at the map from 866. It listed towns and any roads through England at the time. She pulled the next sheet, which listed the names of the original coven members and their family ties, as well as a list of several members of the Viking colony in Jorvik.

  “This is good,” she said and looked up at Lial. “Thanks.”

  “Glad to help. The next piece, though, is a little trickier. Opening the portal itself is easy. It’s opening it to the right date and time, that’s harder. We can’t send you too early, because Kolgaar can’t return to his timeline while he’s still there in the past. We have to return him the day of or the day after he left.”

  “So, how do we do that?” Annie asked.

  “Reverse the portal energy that’s near the house using a simple polarity spell. It’s already linked to the past. It’s where he came from,” Lial explained. For reference, he pulled out a book and passed it to Annie. She opened the marked page and read the passage.

  “It’s really that simple?” she asked and handed Cham the book.

  “I don’t think any of us realized you could open a time portal. It’s not so difficult to open the portal, and reopening that one will get you where you need to go.” He smiled.

  “It sounds like it could work.” Cham’s jaw clenched tightly as he passed the book to Gibbs and Brite. Annie couldn’t help but notice, and it broke her heart. “Just an update for you: I talked to Graham and Bucky. They’re working through ways to determine if events change in the present.” He glanced at his phone. “They actually think they figured out a spell to do the job.” He sighed.

  “Okay. That eases my mind slightly. If there’s nothing else, I think we should go home. I don’t think I can put it off any longer. We’ll leave tomorrow morning,” Annie said.

  “I think, then, that’s the plan,” James said, leaving everyone concerned.

  Chapter 17

  Annie stood on the porch of her house, protected by a blocking spell that allowed her to teleport without being seen. While her neighbors couldn’t see onto the porch, she could see Mrs. Welter watering her plants at the outer edge of her patio and the children on the other side swinging so fast that their swing set swayed.

  The world rotated in its normal ebb and flow of the everyday. Her neighbors did what they normally did, and the traffic flowed two streets away.

  It wasn’t just any day for Annie. She felt unnerved, as if she were being watched, not just by the entire Wizard Council, but by someone else. She worried that no amount of magic co
uld hide her here at home.

  She scanned the trees on the other side of the alley behind her house. From where she stood, she saw no movement, no shadows, nothing that looked human, and yet she couldn’t shake the feeling she was being watched.

  Annie debated whether to search the trees, once a safe hiding place for her and Janie when they were young. They used to take the trail that wound to a small creek and hide in the hollow tree trunk. Hiding back then was merely a formality of play where they could hang out without the interruption of parents. They would read, eat candy, and talk about boys.

  At this moment, the trees didn’t feel safe. She turned and glanced inside the kitchen window where Zola was cleaning an already clean kitchen. Annie sighed, she knew Zola could feel her pain and wished she didn’t need to have this conversation as she pulled open the door and entered her house.

  “You told me the story of the Fates since I was old enough to understand. Now I know why,” Annie said.

  Zola was mid-wipe and stopped cleaning, but wouldn’t look at Annie.

  “You’re hiding something,” Annie accused. She watched her Aloja Fairy. Zola’s bright emerald green eyes were cloudy with worry, and her thin wings flapped wildly. “I don’t care about the powers. I just wish everyone who was there or who knows what’s going on would just tell me.” Her voice was louder than she anticipated; she couldn’t help the anger that bubbled to the surface.

  Zola dropped the rag and sighed. She pulled something from her pocket and placed it in Annie’s hand. Annie opened her palm and stared at a silver necklace. Hanging from the delicately forged chain was a round, silver charm. The design at the center was something Annie had never seen before: two birds, apparently swans, their bodies curving gracefully to form a circle, their necks crossed as though each watched the other’s back. At the center of the charm, surrounded by the swan bodies, a small circle was split in four by two crossed lances.

  Annie could only assume it was a protection charm. She asked anyway. “What is this?”