by T J Kelly
"We've got some sandwiches and water bottles over there," he said, pointing the way. The two of them walked to the counter along the back wall between the windows. There were several food and medical packets already prepped and ready to go.
While Peter helped Kamini stuff her backpack, I studied the charts spread out on the table near the wall map. I arranged the figures that stood for Poltens and Reg over on the west coast.
The enemy had been trying to space us out all over the planet and trap us there with situations we couldn't ignore so our ability to transfer was negated. But we had more allies we could trust than they did. It was a flaw in their thinking, but since it worked in our favor, I was fine with it.
"Good luck," I called to Kamini on her way out. She gave me a thumbs up and then disappeared back into her safe house network.
"I'm glad you're getting along better," Peony murmured as she reached my side. "I'm so proud of you."
I looked up, totally confused. "What are you talking about? And I guess, thanks?"
She laughed. "You really have made progress. I'm incredibly proud of how you treated Kamini as an ally, rather than a rival."
"Oh." I shrugged. "Yeah. I guess I'm not jealous anymore. That helps."
My aunt gave me a hug. "You're amazing," she said. "I can't tell you how much of a pleasure it has been since you moved here."
"I love you, too," I replied, because that was what she had really meant by all of that. Every conversation lately had turned into one we all knew could be our last. None of us wanted to disappear forever after saying something stupid or ordinary, like a comment about the weather. Or worse, a complaint.
She bustled off to finish some task across the room, and Peter took her place. "Is she doing it again?" he asked.
"Yeah," I giggled. Except it wasn't really funny. But a laugh was better than tears. "This time I'm all grown up and not sniping at Kamini anymore."
"Hey, that's true though. I used to think I'd have to sacrifice myself to keep you two apart," he teased. I gave him a look, then turned back to the charts.
"Does this look familiar to you?" I asked. I had been filling in the different locations with colors indicating incidences, manpower, and strength of the attack.
Peter studied the papers spread out all over the table. "It looks like something I studied in school."
"Oh, yeah," I shouted as I ran out. I took the stairs at full speed. I had my old school textbooks in my workshop, but I couldn't remember the name or even what it looked like to transport it downstairs. My eyes roamed over the shelves until the spell I had set off landed and made one of the books glow.
As I was flipping through the pages, Peter trotted into my workshop. "Warn a guy next time," he said, laughing between gulping breaths. "You almost gave me a heart attack."
"Sorry. Hey, come look at this." I flipped back and forth between two sections "It's so obvious. What were they thinking?"
Peter looked over my history book. Each time I flipped the page, he could see half the pattern from our charts. "The revolution? Seriously?"
"Yeah. This half in the U.S., the other in France. The troop movements and battles coincide with the locations here. Well, mostly. But close enough that it can't be a coincidence."
"That will help. The concentration right there tells us where the final battle will be. We already knew that."
"Yeah. I guess this is mostly confirmation. Although look at that patch right there. We don't have anything on our charts like that yet."
"Huh. We better get back to the war room. If I'm reading that right, the next major push will be in the Council chambers."
A chill shook my body, my hands shaking the book. The truth. Peter's words rang true to my senses. "We need to tell Aunt Peony. Uncle Ged and the others can probably hold their own but I'd feel better if we were there."
◆◆◆
There was a chill in the air. The chambers were underground, and the ventilation system took in the cool Pacific breezes. It was summer's end, the September warm up was still in the future, but the ocean was never short of icy water and freezing cold winds.
There were only five of us, but that was a power number and the caliber of magicians walking down the steps to the Council chambers was no joke, even if I said so myself.
What they had feared was coming to pass. The weird, powerful magicians were coming to confront them where they sat. Not that we wanted a fight. We still believed in our governing body. Still upheld our principles and balance. It was they who had changed.
"The Council is not in session," a woman announced as we approached the check-in window. The entrance we had used led to the chambers themselves. We avoided the business side of things where I had gone to sign up for the trials.
"I'm here to see my husband," Peony said. She slipped her business card through the little slot on the bottom of the window, speaking through a round speaker grill set into the tempered glass. It looked so old-fashioned. Like a bank or pawn shop from thirty years ago.
The brunette woman glanced at it. "I'm sorry, milady. There are no visitors."
"I'm afraid that won't do," Peony replied. Adrenaline raced through my veins. This was it. She wouldn't take no for an answer, and any action to countermand a representative of the Council put us on the wrong side of the law. "Open the door or we will remove it."
The rest of us were in our Irregular uniforms. The woman had to know what that meant. Her eyes widened, and she stepped deeper into the room, putting herself at a distance from the door Peony had indicated. The lady shook her head reluctantly and then popped out the back door to her office area.
"All right. It begins today," my aunt said. We turned to the massive wooden door blocking our path. It had carvings of gold in a band affixed to the outer edges. Each held a protection spell, reinforcing the door to block out unwanted and dangerous guests.
Unless they were us. Then it would burst open against the onslaught of five magicians determined to find their leaders and fight a war.
"That was easier than it should have been," James said as we stepped through the wreckage of the door. I felt bad about ruining an antique that held a lot of beauty in its design, but comforted myself knowing any halfway decent magician could fix it as if it had never been damaged. For all I knew, it had been smashed a hundred times before.
"And now we know why," Richard responded. His sharp seer eyes caught the wavering bits of Air along the walls, indicating a portal. "How much you want to bet that will send us strait to the dungeons?"
Peony snapped her fingers. The dark hall before us dissolved along with the portal. Her actions revealed a clean, open foyer made of white marble walls and columns, a fresco painted on the ceiling depicting the tarot, not that different from the ones in my workshop. "The chambers where the conscripted guests of the Council are held will be downstairs."
We shuffled along silently, following my aunt, spiraling down several sets of stairs. Above us came the sounds of shouting and scurrying feet, then boots stomping across marble until they hit the cast iron stairs. The guards, coming for us.
"Scatter pattern when we get there," James murmured. We had three more flights of steps to go. "Lia, you and Peter focus on breaking the spells on the chamber doors. The rest of us will run interference."
"Got it," I agreed. Peter added his confirmation to mine.
"Use the safe houses and skip trace at least seven stops before heading back to the castle," Peony directed. "They'll know we're headed there and try to stop us, but that should confuse the path enough to get us back safely. Jonathon Robus should be there with updates."
There was always somebody stationed in the war room. It wouldn't be empty until the final battle.
We fanned out as we hit the ground floor, the Council having chosen their location carefully. All of them were Earth users, and the depth put them closer to the Center of the Universe.
The entry was a vast space, also lined with white marble. The ceiling had no paintings, instead it
had been plastered in white with gold borders all around, etchings of symbols and hexes. Peter took out his notepad, his pencil flying across the pages. With each page turn, several of the images disappeared, until there was nothing left but blank white ceiling.
As he worked, the rest of our group chose three of the doors encircling the room, passing through to meet what lay on the other side. I made my way to the door directly across from the stairs. There were other sets of stairs and entryways all leading to the same place. A huge metal door made of gold, silver, and lead. My uncle, Mort, and Joseph had passed through willingly, answering the summons of the Council. But times change. We needed them out of there before whatever Oberon had planned for the place happened.
"Can you break it?" Peter asked. He was done with the ceiling. My aunt exited her door and moved clockwise to the one next to it, giving us both a short, encouraging wave. Neither one of my cousins had finished doing whatever it was they faced on the other side of their chosen doors.
"Yeah. It's going to take us a while, though." The door hummed and wavered before us, sending off a sickly pink-brown aura of mixed spells and curses. They really wanted to keep us out. They bound it with Dark and Light, in the same proportions as my nearly balanced heritage. As if it had been made for me.
Or by me. I narrowed my eyes and dove deep, looking for the origin spell. Sure enough, it was crimson soaked black, the aura of the Rectors. An ancestor of mine had created it. Nobody was breaking through that thing.
Except a bloodline relative, like me.
"I'm ready when you are," he said, placing his hands on my shoulders. I leaned back against him, strengthening our connection, taking in more of his Light.
"All right." I closed my eyes. The sound of three doors opening and closing behind me told me the progress being made by my family. They were taking out whoever was coming, but eventually would have to come into the open to protect our backs. Peter and I would be too busy. "Incipere."
There was a path to follow. Any other magician would have missed it, but Rectors knew the signs. My aunt's words from the storage room came back to me. I was the focus of the prophecies. Almost as if it had been designed that way. In this moment of history, and in this place, the last Rector would hold the key.
No wonder they were after me. Had been ever since I was born. Before, even. With a flash of insight, the declining numbers of my family made sense. The enemy had been planning this war for a long time. Long enough to tear down the clan that could stop it until there was only one left. A girl who couldn't even access her magic on time. An obstacle easy to remove.
Except I wasn't.
I slipped along the path, soaking in Dark, pushing it to Peter, who made Light. It counterbalanced my efforts, but there was so much extra he wove it into a shield around us.
Images appeared in the darkness, people, maybe the ones who contributed to the protection spells. I didn't recognize any of them. The magic had been set centuries before. Ancient, some parts primordial.
My side hurt. I paused, trying to make sense of it, then opened my eyes. I didn't see the marble walls. I saw a spinning mass of magic, my vision totally attuned to the work before me rather than the reality I stood in. Looking down, I let out a gasp. I had been stabbed, the silver-plated knife still buried to the hilt.
"What's going on," Peter shouted through the gloom. It was blinding, but also noisy in a silent way that only magic could explain.
"Injury," I ground out. "I forgot - can I remove a Spell-knife that doesn't exist or do I need to leave it in so I won't bleed out?"
"Oh, man," my boyfriend moaned in response. "Yeah, okay. Pull it out."
I did, my hand burning with magical flames where I gripped it. I didn't mention that to Peter. He had faced his phobia to save me before, but there was no need to remind him of that. Besides, I could handle it.
From the feel of it, that must have been a recent addition to the protections. Dark magic infused it, but it had the aura of alchemists. A vague memory of my conversation with Sera's teacher Gracia flickered through my mind. That had to be what the alchemists being forced to do for our enemies.
Shouts rose behind us. I didn't switch back to my normal vision but my ears told me there was a battle going on, my aunt and cousins versus an undetermined number of enemies. I turned my attention to the swirling mass of spells in front of me, still blocking the door. More images, more people, all reaching out with their magic, trying to keep me from advancing down the path to the center.
Somewhere near my goal, Yersinia Pestis arrived. I jerked back, causing Peter to grunt and tighten his arms around me.
"Sorry," I said through numbed lips. I had forgotten how my ancestor had once been on the side of light before she twisted and killed off almost half of Europe with the black plague. Her curse, death made by her.
The protections she had left behind on the Council door were horrifying, powerful spells meant to drive the enemy crazy. As crazy as she must have been already at that point in her life to think of such a curse.
"You almost there?" Peter called. He grunted, one of his arms releasing its hold on me. I could feel his body jerking as he fought off a real life attacker.
"Yeah, one more sec," I replied. The funny thing was, at the center of the magic were the images of the current Council. They must be required to contribute blood magic when they assumed their positions. It was creepy facing off with them like that, members both light and dark. Including Armageddon's boss.
Before I snapped the final barrier, I looked around at the representational magic. The dark side was already overpowering the light, even in the fake image of the Council before me. It showed how things really were. And it didn't look good. If we hadn't discovered their plans, they might have succeeded. The light side of the Council would have fallen.
There was no way we would let that happen.
Oberon Taine and the dark half of the Council would not win. All their ploys, their attempts to steal Rector Enterprises, hurt the lower classes, disappearing our agents into a never-ending darkness. None of that would work. I wasn't going to let it. None of us would. We were willing to fight to the death for it, although I hoped it wouldn't come to that. I couldn't stand that kind of loss. Again.
For one moment my progress stalled. But while the thought of their loss weakened me, the strength of their love raised me up. I surged forward in my vision of the spell, running straight at the Council, following the path an ancestor had left for me.
By the very nature of who I was, the magical world was mine. It belonged to me. To Armageddon and Peter. Seth and Harris. Mort and Peony. Reg and Tian. Joseph and Adrian and Poltens and Sera. And all the Irregulars out there in the field, working to make the world a better place, the support men and women who created and worked and strove for a better life. It was ours. To be lived in the light.
We were going to save it.
In one last flash of blinding light, the protections broke. Reality returned, and I grabbed Peter's hands. He swung me around, launching me into the air where I flipped and slammed my feet into the heads of the men who had attacked us while I was occupied. It was a move we had practiced many times, and we knew, by instinct, what needed to be done.
"They've got the rest," Peter shouted, indicating my aunt and cousins had our backs covered as he ran towards the door, pushing it open and dragging me along with him.
With a deep, groaning moan, the door let us through to the other side.
"Hello, pipsqueak," Mort called. "What's up?"
◆◆◆
"Nothing good," I responded, waggling my jaw to try to settle the absolute silence of the room bombarding my ears.
"Time to become criminals," Peter announced. He kept his eye on the door, but nobody had yet followed us. The three men left the waiting chamber, a carpeted, comfortable room that prevented its occupants from leaving. We followed, but there was nothing left for us to do. The guards and a few Council-members lay on the ground, unconscious.
"Remember, skip seven times," Peony said as she disappeared with my uncle.
Peter and I followed quickly, not waiting around to see if there were reinforcements coming. We skip-traced, Peter taking lead while I focused on not heaving from all the spinning and lack of sensation in the dark, punctuated with the occasional flash of light as we burst into reality in a safe house and then popped back out to travel to another. When we finally landed in the entryway at Castle Laurus, Peter had to catch me before I fell to my knees.
"Man, I will never get used to that," I groaned. Peter chuckled. "Seriously. I feel like I might throw up."
"Sorry. I know it's not really funny."
"Here, let me sit for a sec." I hobbled over to one of the benches leaning against the wall. "That's better."
"Dizzy?" Peony asked. I cracked open my eyes to she was standing near me with my uncle by her side.
"Yeah. I'll be fine."
They hurried off, although my uncle rested his hand on my head for a brief moment first. I could feel his love and pride, but also a smidgen of healing. My nausea went away.
"Want something to eat?" Peter offered. "Maybe it will help settle your stomach."
"Uncle Ged took care of that part. I wouldn't have been able to before, but now that it's gone I'm starving. What a huge spell."
We shuffled off to the kitchen. When we were done eating, we checked in with my uncle and Mort. We were all on orders to get rest while we could. I gave Peter a kiss before disappearing into my room for some much-needed sleep. It wasn't until the middle of the night almost twenty-four hours later that I woke.
"How are things going?" I asked as I returned to the war room, freshly showered and in my battle uniform, braids and bun in place.
"Progressing. The Council has sent demands, but we're ignoring them. Tomorrow is the big day." Armageddon paced before the wall-sized map. "Are you ready?"
"Yes. Especially after that massive nap I just had. I can't believe you let me sleep."
"We've got things under control. But the time has come." The plan relied on me and Peter responding to the incidents around the globe that were targeting us specifically for distraction. If I was a focal point, I was a good lure. Meanwhile, the other agents would take care of the other issues out in the field. Some targets had been evacuated and we would leave those locations to destruction from the enemy. We would address repairs later.