Wizard Hall Chronicles Box Set

by Sheryl Steines

  “But you’re corporeal,” Ryan said incredulously as he poked Jason in the chest.

  Jason chuckled. “She made me corporeal in England. Just waved her hand and poof. And now I’m here.”

  “You’re supposed to be dead,” Ryan said.

  Milo entered the waiting room, having come from the morgue. He stared at Jason standing there, alive and well, warm and healthy.

  “It’s really me,” Jason said to Milo when he joined them.

  Cham handed him the crystal. Milo stared at the magic in awe.

  “Annie did this?” Milo asked.

  “Yes,” Cham said.

  “As stunned and happy as I am to see you, you shouldn’t be here. It’s messing with the natural order of things. This magic…” Milo started to say.

  “Annie’s in trouble. Subconsciously, I think she knows this. I’m here to protect my girls,” Jason said. “So, how do we do that?”

  “You’re dead, Jason. It’s been eight years.” Milo ran his hands across his stubbly chin. He was supposed to retire completely when Annie, Brite, and Gibbs returned. But it all went wrong when they came back; Gibbs was dead, Annie had magic coursing through her that could kill her, and now Jason was back from the dead.

  “I’m here, though,” Jason said.

  “Besides bringing you back, we don’t know yet what she might have changed. If anything, the changes might be subtle and we won’t know it right away.” Milo frowned. “I’m not sure what your presence here will do to the magical energy around us.”

  “I’m dead, so technically, I’m just taking up space.” Jason waved his hand through the air attempting magic. “I can’t perform magic. I’m not taking from the magical energy.”

  “You’re here because of magic. You are inherently magic. You’ll be a drain on the magical energy wherever you go,” Milo said. Still in ill health, his hands shook as he pointed to Jason.

  “You can’t send him away,” Samantha said. “He’s here. He can help Annie with the Fraternitatem.”

  “If this is all she changed, we can control this. But if there’s a magical shift, we send him away,” Cham said. He looked at Samantha, nearly jumping out of her skin at the sight of her newly reconstituted father. But he knew Milo was right. Jason shouldn’t be here.

  “We keep him out of sight,” Milo insisted. “He can’t go home; his neighbors can’t know he’s here. I say you can stay at the hotel across the way. It gives you access to the entire Wizard Hall. But that’s it.”

  “No. He can come home with me,” Samantha said.

  “He’s better away from the wizard community. If this gets out to the Fraternitatem, any use he is to protect Annie and Sami will be lost,” Cham said.

  “Hey. I’m here. I can speak for myself,” Jason said.

  They all looked at him. Milo asked, “Fine. What’s your thought?”

  “I want to go home. I can stay hidden. I don’t want to leave Annie. Her magic can protect me. And I agree with Cham. We can’t let the Fraternitatem know I’m back.”

  “We keep this mum,” Milo said to the Chamskys and to the hospital staff. He turned back to Jason. “If this gets out, if you cause trouble, if your presence endangers the magical order, I will send you back to wherever you came from. Do I make myself clear?” he asked, as if Jason were responsible for his own presence.

  “I’ll do whatever you say.” Jason looked at Samantha and waved her over. She looked at Cham as if asking for permission. Cham nodded. Samantha touched her father’s cheek and wrapped her arms around him, laying her head on his shoulder.

  “I missed you, Dad.”

  “My sweet girl.”

  Cham glanced at Ryan and Milo. None of them felt good about this.

  Chapter 35

  Brite was released in the morning after a shower, food, and a good night’s sleep. Annie fitfully slept the day after returning. After receiving hydration and medical care, she was released from the hospital a day after Brite and placed on medical leave.

  She stood in front of her full-length bedroom mirror and looked at herself in her black dress. She smoothed the fabric and held her hands in tight fists as she held back tears. For the moment, she pushed those feelings away and brushed her teeth, applied her makeup, and held her brush loosely in her hand. While the bones had healed, both hands were stiff and swollen. She sighed as she struggled to tidy her tangled mess of hair.

  “Need help?” Kathy asked.

  “Maybe put it up. I don’t think it matters much,” Annie said.

  She let Kathy gather her hair into a ponytail and brush it smooth. “You okay?” Kathy asked.

  “I still can’t believe Gibbs is dead,” Annie said.

  “I know. I thought he’d outlast us all, that stubborn ass,” Kathy said.

  Annie laughed at the perfect description of him. “I need to pick someone up and bring them to the funeral. I’ll meet you there, okay?” she asked.

  Kathy nodded as Annie left.

  There were very few nonmagicals who knew of the existence of magic. It was a tightly kept secret, one that was protected at all costs, unless something happened that caused a nonmagical to know. In Jason’s case it was Emily Worthington, a young nonmagical he couldn’t help but fall in love with. In Annie’s case, it was FBI Special Agent Jack Ramsey. An unexpected meeting had led to the investigation into the death of the nonmagical Princess Amelie. Because of that, Jack would forever be linked to the magical world, whether he wanted to or not.

  He said nothing when Annie met him in their usual location, a parking lot in an abandoned industrial park.

  “You okay?” Jack asked when he saw her.

  “Everyone keeps asking me that. Like I tell everyone, I lost someone very important to me. I’m not okay yet,” she said softly as she held onto Jack and teleported him to Wizard Hall.

  It was another experience Jack had an opportunity to view: a wizard funeral. He had worked with Gibbs and Gibbs had tolerated him. Jack had been honored when Annie asked him to attend Gibbs’s funeral. Like Brite, Jack had told Annie that John Gibbs deserved a better death than at the hands of a lunatic in another time.

  Jack walked to Spencer, who stood with his wife, Melinda. His face was blank, stunned.

  “Hi, Spencer. I’m sorry for your loss,” Jack said. It seemed like a feeble thing to say, but Spencer had been Gibbs’s partner for years and just being there was something.

  “Thanks,” Spencer said as he hugged Jack. “It’s a little surreal that he’s gone.”

  “I wouldn’t have expected it. I know you two were close.” Jack touched Spencer’s shoulder and moved on, finding an empty spot in the back. “I’ll stay here,” he said to Annie.

  “Find me after,” she said and took a place near Cham at the front.

  The funeral pyre was a four-foot-high wooden platform with Gibbs lying on top. He wore a simple black cotton cloak; he wouldn’t have wanted anything more. The edges of the cloak had long tails that wrapped around posts at each corner. The posts stood eight feet high, leading to a canopy of ferns that spiraled downward, wrapping around the posts.

  Annie scanned the crowds. The entire Wizard Guard from all five offices stood around the pyre. She saw the teams from telecommunications department, including Bucky Hart and Max White, the VAU department with Graham Lightner, the morgue and Perkins Abernathy, and Mrs. Cuttlebrink from the library. Even a large contingent from the Wizard Council were jammed into the courtyard of Wizard Hall.

  Gibbs had no living family and had never been married, but he had a wide circle of coworkers and acquaintances. Annie spotted so many people she hadn’t seen in a while. Even Arrowhead, a former merchant at the Black Market, was there. He spotted Annie and nodded before returning his gaze to the pyre.

  For all of his gruffness and his apparent lack of warmth, Gibbs was, if not well liked, well respected. It showed at the ceremony. Even members of the hospital staff were present, many of whom had worked on all of the guards at one time or another.
/>   It didn’t offer Annie solace, as she, Ryan, Milo, and Spencer picked up a torch to light the barrels of fire surrounding the pyre. Each of them held their torch as the wizard priest chanted ancient words that Annie paid little attention to. She focused on the flames, and when it was time, she and the others lit their corners of the pyre, watching the fire take hold of the wood.

  Flames ate away at the corners and slithered up to the base, enclosing Gibbs in fire. Annie cried out softly when it reached the tails of his cloak. It quickly consumed the cotton fabric, and soon he was engulfed. She let herself cry as the fire took him away forever.

  *

  Gibbs wouldn’t have wanted a funeral. He would have said, “Burn me and bury my ashes on a mountain.” But everyone wanted to honor him in some way, so they all made their way to the Witches Brew, the all-wizard bar that was run out of the house of Douglass Rand, an adventurer and now barkeep and entrepreneur.

  Douglass laid out a table of refreshments: free beer, sandwiches, cookies. Annie found a table at the corner and sat with Cham, Spencer, Milo, Ryan, and Jack. Other guards sat at the surrounding tables. Annie played with her mug of beer and smiled as she saw Arrowhead raise a glass in Gibbs’s honor.

  “When I was seven, he gave me a stake for my birthday,” Annie said. The memory made her smile. Her age hadn’t matter to him, just her desire.

  “I remember that. Jason made a fuss and took it from you,” Ryan said.

  “Dad gave it back to me. It sat on my shelf for years. Gibbs took me on my first vampire hunt when I was thirteen. Dad was out of town and Gibbs snuck me out of the house. I watched him kill a vampire. I had never seen it before.”

  “Were you scared?” Milo asked.

  “Terrified. He wanted me to be, so I would always remember they were scary,” Annie said. Absently, she sipped the bitter beer.

  “My first case as his partner, we were chasing this demon,” Spencer began. “It was one of those weird, blobby things with no name. The ones that are afraid of water. We stumbled into their nest. We ended up hightailing it out of there. He’s screaming at me as five of these things are coming after us. We find a small bridge over the Des Plaines River, and he pushes me. I go over the bridge into the water. He jumps over the other side, and as he’s falling toward the river, he shoots a fireball. We’re on a well-used trail, with demons grunting and growling, and he starts the whole thing on fire.” Spencer starts laughing. “Calls Graham to come over, and let’s just say, Graham wasn’t amused. He starts yelling at Gibbs. And all Gibbs did was shrug. I think Graham would have punched him out for the trouble it caused, but Gibbs had that look. It scared me the first few months I worked with him.” He finished his story and took a sip of beer.

  The stories continued through the afternoon as the beer and food were consumed. Eventually, Annie had had enough and joined some others in the front room.

  “Hi, Mrs. Cuttlebrink.” Annie said.

  “If you’re up for it, I need to show you something,” the librarian said.

  Annie nodded and followed her to a quiet corner at the front of the bar where Mrs. Cuttlebrink held on to an accordion file. “I suggested to the Wizard Council, and they agreed, that the sword you used in England, along with the other artifacts you brought back, should remain at Artifact Hall. I don’t know if you knew, but Robin Price found the talismans in England.” She pulled out the pictures and handed them to Annie.

  “I hadn’t heard that.”

  “You were still in the hospital. He found them at the…” she referred to a note pad. “The Jorvik Viking Center in York, England. The VAU created fake ones and Robin made the switch.”

  Annie shook her head and chuckled. “What does that have to do with me?”

  Mrs. Cuttlebrink offered a knowing smile. “Well, since you saved the coven and allowed them to come here with the Vikings, it has everything to do with you,” she said.

  Annie shrugged. “I’m still not following.”

  “Well. All of the artifacts will be placed in a special exhibit in Artifact Hall. I was helping Robin. You know, sorting through the ancient coven documents and other artifacts. We found this.” She pushed the file to Annie.

  Annie untied the rope that held the folder together and pulled out a pile of papers, a small Book of Shadows on the top. She looked at Mrs. Cuttlebrink. “You need to see what’s in there,” the librarian said.

  Annie opened the front cover. Inside, the words were in an ancient handwriting; she waved her palm across the page and said “Translate.” The words shimmered out and reappeared in English.

  Anaise,

  There is not a day that goes by that I do not think of you and all you did to save my people. You were a wonder, and because of you, we freed ourselves of the damage done and made a harrowing trip across the sea to our new home.

  With us came the Vikings, as they too had been traumatized and needed a fresh start. We decided as two groups to become one and brought with us many things you might recognize in your time. I hope they bring you joy as they have to us.

  I married when I arrived to the new world. You might remember Svenson. He has been so lovely to me, and we worked very hard to survive, to raise our family, and begin growing the new wizard community that you promised me would grow in great numbers to be the largest in the world. It wasn’t easy, but I want you to know, I was loved and I loved and I had many children. One I named for you—Anaise.

  I made Anaise promise to continue to add to our Book of Shadows, to record all of our adventures and our family names and to have each generation do the same, so that someday you could see the good that you have done and all the people that came to be because you were brave and strong and so very smart.

  We never forgot you. Stories were written for you and you will find them here in this book. I hope the coven and the Vikings left a beautiful legacy for and your family. Blessed be.

  Bega

  Annie pulled out several long sheets of parchment written in an exquisite cursive writing. It started with Bega and Svenson and listed their children and their children’s children. Annie turned another page of the family tree, finding her way to modern day. She continued to page three and stopped when she saw the names of her great-grandparents on her father’s side: Simon and Laurel Pearce. “Whoa,” Annie said and looked up at Mrs. Cuttlebrink.

  “I thought you’d find that interesting,” Mrs. Cuttlebrink said.

  “How? Where did this come from?” Annie asked.

  “I don’t have an answer for that. I just know it was found in the original paperwork and items from the first Wizard Council. Of course, it was documented and substantiated, and there it is,” Mrs. Cuttlebrink said.

  “I don’t know what to say. I met her. Bega helped us, a lot. I… wow.” She touched Bega’s name on the front page and smiled. “This confirms the original coven and the Vikings came to North America far sooner than history reveals. Too bad, we can’t share this with historians.”

  “Yes. We had thought about that. But it would be very tricky to explain where the new evidence came from.” Mrs. Cuttlebrink offered a soft laugh.

  Annie stared at her family tree. Like Bega had promised, it grew additional branches. Annie sighed deeply, thinking Gibbs would have found it interesting. She wiped a lone tear, tucked the family tree inside the Book of Shadows and packed it back inside the accordion folder. She pushed it to Mrs. Cuttlebrink.

  “I’ll keep this in the library until you’re ready to delve into the documents. Okay?”

  Annie nodded. Mrs. Cuttlebrink picked up the folder and entered into the remaining crowd to celebrate Gibbs’s life.

  A majority of the bar had cleared out several hours ago. The only people left were those closest to him. She found a seat beside Kathy and Samantha. “Holding up okay?” Kathy asked.

  “Yeah. My heart hurts though.” Annie played with a straw still wrapped in paper.

  “It will for a while,” Samantha said.

  “The last thing he said to
me was ‘Annie.’ He keeled over from a death curse as I was kidnapped by a madman,” Annie said.

  Cham was the only person she’d told how Gibbs had died. Remembering that moment haunted her, she shook at the memory.

  “He called you by your name? He never did that,” Samantha said.

  Annie chuckled. “I was giving him a hard time about it. I told him since I’d be so powerful, he should start calling me ‘Annie.’ He tried.”

  “He was like a grumpy uncle. He loved both of you,” Kathy said.

  The party, after several hours, was breaking up. Annie was unsure of what would happen to all of them during the next few weeks.

  *

  Annie stood in her closet. She hung her dress, slipped on her sweats and a T-shirt, and marveled at the electric light above her. Footsteps crossed the hardwood floor and she startled at the sound.

  She stepped inside her bedroom.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bother you,” Jason said.

  She sat on the bench at the end of her bed and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. “I’ll never get used to you being here,” Annie admitted.

  Jason chuckled and looked around the room. “I like what you did with the house,” he said as he fumbled with his hands.

  “Thanks.” She observed him carefully. He was nervous in the unfamiliar year. Everyone he knew had moved on without him, and he was stuck in the same place he was when he died. She saw the anxiety in his body movements and in his eyes when he looked at her.

  “I won’t be here for long. At least until I know you’re safe,” Jason said.

  “I didn’t mean to conjure you. I can send you back,” Annie suggested.

  Jason sat on her bed and picked up her hands. “I know you didn’t. And honestly, I wish you hadn’t. I’ve missed so much and I don’t belong here. Everyone has moved on and I’m just… here. But I am here. And I know what’s going on. I want to help you. Send me back when it’s done.”

  Annie nodded. Jason looked at her left hand, where her newly cleaned engagement ring sparkled.

  “So you and Cham, huh?”