by R. L. King
“That little one has taken a definite liking to you,” Lamar said, smiling, as Stone began picking bits of meat out of his sandwich to offer the kitten.
“What do you mean, changed their focus?” Benny asked. As usual he didn’t look directly at them; instead, his gaze roamed around the room and settled over people’s shoulders when he spoke.
Stone gave the group a brief overview of what had been happening over the last couple of weeks, leaving out the part about the portals or the specific locations of the dead mages. Lamar and Marilee listened with particular attention.
“So you think they’re killing mages now?” Lamar asked after he’d finished. “Do you know why?”
Jason shook his head. “Not completely, except we think they’re trying to recruit. Al’s trying to figure it out, but we don’t know much for sure yet.”
“At least it sounds like they’re leaving you guys alone,” Verity said. “I’m glad to hear that. I’ve been thinking about you, hoping you were okay.”
Lamar smiled gently. “We’re fine, but thank you for your concern. We’ve gotten pretty good at staying out of the way and looking after ourselves.”
“Still,” she said, “We should visit more often. I’m eighteen now, so even if Dr. Stone and Jason are busy, I can still come by if I know where you are.”
“We’d like to see all of you,” Marilee said. “But be careful. I don’t think this is over yet.”
“Nor do I,” Stone said. “Far from it.” He took a deep breath. “Part of why we came tonight, aside from wanting to see you and make sure you’re still doing well, is that I’d like to ask a favor.”
Benny and Hector, who’d come in and sat down a few moments ago, joined Lamar and Marilee in looking at him with curiosity. “You’ve done so much for us,” Lamar said. “I’m sure we’ll be happy to help you if we can.”
“We don’t have to deal with the Evil, do we?” Hector asked. He looked like that idea didn’t appeal to him at all.
“No,” Stone assured him. “Nothing to do with the Evil. But,” he added, picking his words carefully, “It’s—a bit of an odd request. I’m trying to determine something to help Verity, but in order to be sure, I need to test it on another Forgotten to see if there’s a similar reaction.”
“Reaction to what?” Lamar asked.
“To—a certain stimulus,” Stone said. He sighed. “I’m terribly sorry—I know this all sounds very secretive, but unfortunately I’m not at liberty to reveal everything about what I’m asking you to do. All I can say is that it could be dangerous, and that I’ll understand completely if none of you want anything to do with it.”
The Forgotten all stayed silent; unease hung in the air as they focused their gazes anywhere but on the mage. Stone nodded. “All right, then,” he said. “I understand. I wouldn’t ask any of you to put yourselves at risk. I—”
“I’ll do it,” came a singsong voice from an unexpected member of the group. “I’ll help Mr. Magic Man...”
Stone frowned, surprised. Usually Lissy gave no indication that she even understood conversations going on around her, let alone followed them. She was certainly the last one he’d have expected to speak up. He shook his head. “No, Lissy, it’s all right. I appreciate your offer, I really do. But—”
“I want to help,” she said dreamily. She smiled at him, a wide, unfocused smile. “Go the pretty place with the pretty lights...”
Stone, Jason, and Verity all exchanged shocked glances. True, Lissy had previously shown flashes of an odd and almost psychic ability to describe things she’d never seen before, but—
“What are you talking about, Lissy?” Marilee asked, scooting over to put her arm around the girl’s thin shoulders. “What place with the pretty lights?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. She rolled her head over and dropped it on Marilee’s shoulder. “Want to help the magic man. Lissy’s not scared...”
Marilee looked at Stone, her eyes full of questions. “Can you tell us anything more about this?”
Stone considered. For several seconds he was silent, thinking over what he wanted to say. At last he sighed. “There’s—a way that mages use to travel from one point to another. We’ve been using it for a long time—almost a hundred years—and it’s usually quite safe as long as certain conditions are observed. But for some reason Verity is having trouble using it. She becomes agitated and exhibits a severe degree of fear and unease when she tries. We did some experiments earlier tonight, and my best guess is that her problems somehow stem from her Forgotten abilities. I can’t be sure, though; it could be something completely unrelated. But the only way I can think of to determine whether I’m right is to test it on another Forgotten. If that person has similar reactions, then I’ll be much more confident that being Forgotten has some connection to it, and I can start trying to work out a way to block it so Verity doesn’t experience the problems anymore.”
The Forgotten exhibited different reactions to Stone’s words. Frank the Scribbler hadn’t been paying attention at all. The mage had lost Hector and Benny about halfway through: they munched their sandwiches and their attention wandered around the room; Hector rooted around in his old Army jacket looking for more cigarettes. Lamar and Marilee listened intently. So, surprisingly, did Lissy. She still had the dreamy, off-kilter smile, and swayed back and forth as if dancing to unseen music, but her gaze remained focused on Stone.
When he finished, Lamar looked contemplative. “I...see,” he said. “And what is the secret part of this, that you can’t tell us?”
“The location of this travel method—since many mages use it, I’m not at liberty to reveal its location to others—and the exact nature of the travel involved.”
“You’d be…taking Lissy somewhere?” Marilee asked, her voice quavering. Stone didn’t miss the fact that, as frightened as she was for Lissy, she herself clearly had no intention of participating in his experiments. He and the others had been interacting with the Forgotten long enough now that sometimes he forgot that at the bottom of things they were a group of homeless people who all had various mental issues. They weren’t saints, any more than he and Jason and Verity were, and sometimes fear was stronger than protective instincts.
“Yes and no,” Stone said, troubled. “We’d have to go to the location of the—travel point—and if one of you went with us, we’d have to conceal that location from you. We aren’t actually going to use it to travel anywhere, though. It’s difficult to explain, but we won’t be leaving the area.”
He looked at Lissy again and sighed. “But Lissy, I don’t think you should be the one. If none of the rest of you want to do it, that’s fine. I can work out my experiments some other way.”
“Why?” Lissy asked, wide-eyed and childlike. “Sounds fun.”
“I don’t think it will be fun, Lissy,” Marilee said, squeezing her shoulders again. “It sounds like it might be scary.”
“It probably will be scary,” Stone confirmed. “It’s scary for Verity, and if my ideas are correct, it will be for you too, Lissy.”
“Yeah,” Verity added gently. “I don’t think you should do it either, Lis.”
Lissy giggled. “I’m not scared. I like scary things.”
Lamar, who hadn’t spoken yet, faced Stone. “How dangerous is this likely to be? What are the risks?”
Stone sighed. “There’s no way to know for sure, because I don’t know how she’ll react. If I’m wrong, she’ll experience nothing at all, beyond possibly a vague unease. If I’m correct—”
“She might freak out,” Verity said soberly. “That’s what I do. I scream and pretty much get incoherent.”
“This is safe?” Marilee asked.
“Dr. Stone can keep us safe,” Verity said. “I trust him.”
“I can’t make any guarantees,” Stone said. “It’s the nature of this—travel method—that sometimes the unexpected happens.”
Lamar looked down at his sandwich. “I don’t know. We owe
you all so much, but—”
“But you’re frightened,” Stone said gently. “I understand. You’ve been through so much more than we have in your lives. You don’t want to add more potential danger. I understand that, and you’re quite right.”
“I want to go!” Lissy said with surprising vehemence. She looked like an overtired small child about to erupt into a tantrum. “I want to help Magic Man!”
“I’m goin’ out for another smoke,” Hector said abruptly. He got up and stumped out of the room.
“I’ve never seen her this—determined,” Marilee said, surprised. She looked at Lamar. “Should we—?”
Lissy pulled herself loose from Marilee’s encircling arm, got up, and plopped down next to Stone. “We go now?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I don’t like this,” Stone told Jason two hours later.
They sat in the front of the van, talking quietly, while Verity, in the back with Lissy, listened to the girl’s cheerful chatter about nothing and everything.
“Not too late to turn back,” Jason said under his breath.
They had spent the last two hours catching up with the Forgotten, lingering over their sandwiches and discussing topics both mundane and not-so-mundane. Stone insisted on waiting for two reasons: first, he hoped Lissy would forget all about her desire to help with the experiment, and second, he didn’t want to proceed until the restaurant was closed. Even going in through the back door would be risky if there were customers in the parking lot.
Unfortunately Lissy had chosen this time to exhibit a degree of focus none of them had ever seen before. She sat next to Stone, regularly favoring him with her spacey gaze and goofy smile. Every few minutes she would ask, “We go soon, right?”
“I think she’s got a crush on you, Al,” Jason muttered in the mage’s ear at one point, grinning. Stone had not returned the grin. He didn’t think any of this was at all amusing.
Now, he sat behind the wheel of the van in the parking lot of A Passage to India, staring down at his hands.
“Hey,” Jason said, still speaking quietly. “It isn’t too late, you know. But it’ll probably be fine, right?”
Stone shrugged. “Probably will. I expect she’ll have a reaction similar to Verity’s if the Forgotten thing is the problem, but Verity recovers quickly. She should too. I hope.” He sighed and his expression hardened. “If we’re doing this, though, let’s get on with it. I’ll feel better when it’s over, and Lissy’s back with her people.”
Lissy looked up when she heard her name. They had tied a colorful piece of fabric over her eyes so she wouldn’t see where they were taking her, and she had spent most of the trip giggling about playing ‘hide and seek.’ “I help now?”
“Soon, Lissy,” Verity told her. She helped the girl out of the van and closed the door, and together the three of them took her into the restaurant through the back way, to which Stone still had a key. By this time the parking lot was deserted, but Stone used his disregarding spell just to be safe.
They took her downstairs, still blindfolded, with Stone on one side and Jason on the other to make sure she didn’t trip. “Smells good,” she said, sniffing with exaggerated enjoyment. “Better than sandwiches.”
“We’ll bring you some later,” Verity promised.
When they reached the portal room and closed the door, Lissy clearly had the idea that something was about to happen. “Pretty,” she said, reaching up to pull off the blindfold.
Jason moved to stop her, but Stone shook his head. “She doesn’t know where she is now,” he said. “We’ll put it back on before we go back.”
As soon as she’d pulled the fabric away, Lissy simply stood and stared, her eyes huge. She looked like a little girl staring at the world’s most beautiful holiday light show. Her mouth opened in an O of amazed delight.
Verity grinned. “Pretty, huh?”
“Christmas,” she breathed. “It’s like Christmas. So pretty.” She reached out to touch it, but Stone put a hand on her arm.
“Not yet, Lissy,” he told her gently. “Just look for now, don’t touch.” He glanced at Jason. “Make sure she doesn’t try to go in. I need to set up a few things, and then put up the block on her so she’s not getting the full force of it if she’s susceptible.”
Jason nodded, and he and Verity watched Lissy as she stood there with her eyes wide and her mouth still open, staring with wonder into the portal’s shifting patterns of light and color.
“All right.” Stone’s quiet voice interrupted their reverie after a couple of minutes. “I’m as ready as I’m going to get. Verity, you’ll have to stay here, of course.”
She nodded. “Yeah—if Lissy freaks out, you aren’t gonna want to deal with both of us at once.”
“We should only be in there a couple of minutes. I shouldn’t need to get the kind of readings I got on you—the mere fact that she has the reaction, or doesn’t, should be enough. So if we’re not back in five minutes tops—” He paused. “Well, you can’t very well come in after us, can you? So let’s just hope everything goes well, shall we?”
Verity patted Lissy’s arm. “Just trust Dr. Stone,” she told her. “It might be scary, but he won’t let you get hurt. Just stay close to him, do what he says, and it’ll be fine.”
Lissy smiled her vague smile and snuggled up to the mage. “Pretty place...I help magic man!”
Stone was all business now. “Jason, I’ll be busy getting a few readings and holding the shield, so you’ll have to deal with Lissy. Hold on to her, and whatever you do, don’t let her get away from us. I’m hoping that even if she does react, it’ll be like Verity does and she’ll just stay in one place, but I don’t want to take chances.”
Jason nodded and took hold of Lissy’s arm. “Ready to go, Lissy?”
She nodded several times, like a little girl. “Prettier inside!”
None of them corrected her. “All right,” Stone said, his voice tight. He put one hand on Jason, then gestured and the glowing shield formed around them. He gripped Lissy’s arm with his other hand. “On three, then, just like before. One...two...three.”
They stepped through.
Later on, neither Stone nor Jason would be able to reconstruct exactly what happened next. It was all so fast and sudden that they barely had time to react, let alone process it.
The moment they crossed the shifting barrier, Lissy began to scream just like Verity had—but that was where the similarity ended.
Instead of incoherent shrieks, Lissy’s screams were intelligible—and in a completely different tone than her usual dreamy, spacey voice. She sounded as they imagined she might sound if she were sane—and terrified beyond all possible reason. “Oh my God! Oh my god! They’re all around! Ohgodohgodohgod—”
“What’s all around?” Stone demanded. “Lissy—” The creatures had only just begun to materialize now; they were still some distance away from the shield.
“They’re all around us!” she shrieked. “Oh, God, it’s the EVIL! Everywhere—EVERYWHERE—”
And then, completely surprising Jason, who still had his hand clamped on her arm, she screamed something incoherent, ripped free of his grasp, and darted off—away from the portal entrance.
“NO!” Jason yelled, lunging forward to grab her before she left the shield. “Lissy, no!”
“Lissy!” Stone’s eyes were wild, his face strained with the effort of maintaining the shield as Jason’s concentration faltered—and with it the power conduit. “Jason!” he barked. “Power!” and he too leaped toward Lissy, the shield bubble moving with him and Jason.
The creatures ignored the two of them now. Lissy, running headlong forward into the gray tunnel and screaming as if her heart were being ripped from her, attracted them like a bucket of chum in a crowd of hungry sharks.
Stone gathered energy and flung a massive lightning bolt into the group of creatures, scattering them, but only for a few seconds. They moved back in, circling the screaming girl.
�
��Lissy!” Stone cried. “Run this way! Run toward us!”
She was beyond hearing, or caring. Likely she was beyond any sort of human understanding anymore. One creature broke free of the group, flaring red against the unrelenting gray of the Overworld, and leaped at her, tearing a chunk from her arm. Blood sprayed in all directions, and her scream pitched higher.
“No!” Stone yelled, moving forward again. He clamped his hand on Jason’s shoulder and focused everything he had on Lissy, grabbing her with telekinetic force and dragging her writhing, struggling body back toward the bubble.
There were too many of the creatures, though. Some, sensing the chance that their meal might be snatched from them, redirected their attention to Stone and Jason. Stone struggled to keep the shield up and drag Lissy back through the roiling crowd, but even with Jason providing power, his strength was failing.
Jason, horrified and unable to do anything but focus on the power, saw all of this. Stone was barely standing, his hands shaking as he directed them at Lissy—but she wasn’t getting any closer. Her screams grew quieter now as the creatures surrounded her. There was blood everywhere. The creatures were pulling her apart. “Al!” he screamed into the mage’s ear. “We have to go back!”
“NO!” Stone yelled back. “I’m not leaving her!” He sobbed with effort and frustration.
One of the creatures slammed into the shield and it flared bright. Jason grabbed Stone’s arm. “Al, the shield’s going down! You can’t help her! Nobody can help her now! If we stay here, we’re dead, too!” He hated himself for saying it—every bit of him screamed for him to fling himself out there, grab Lissy, and drag her back to safety, but even as he was desperate to do it, he knew it wasn’t possible. Killing themselves wouldn’t save her.
“I won’t leave her here!”
Jason backpedaled, dragging Stone toward the portal exit. He could almost feel it glowing and pulsing behind them. “Al, damn it, go!”