Forced Magic

by Jerod Lollar

  At the sound of Smith's voice, Pek's eyebrows jumped to the top of his head. His ears gave a little wiggle and I noticed that they came to a point.

  “Ah, Smith," said Pek. ”So you have come to see me, eh? Tired of cleaning up after that Troll? Well, you can forget my vote to get you back on the council. You have made your goblin nest now, so it is your responsibility to eat in it.”

  “I’m not here for me,” said Smith, with a little impatience in his voice. ”I have brought some friends to see you. We need your help."

  ”Of course you do. Everyone does these days. Well what is it? Someone wants to learn how to use a cell phone? Or maybe an explanation of how a debit card works? Hmm?"

  "No, no my friend, nothing like that. There is danger afoot and my young friends, Fetch and Jack need your help."

  At the mention of our names, Pek slammed his fingers on the keyboard so hard that it had to have broken something. Slowly Pek's face appeared above the screen of his computer. He stared at me and Fetch. Clapping his hands together the lights in the trailer came on revealing a small table and one chair on which Pek was sitting. Nothing else was in the trailer except discarded empty boxes of to-go food scattered around the floor. Pek moved out of his chair and walked around the table. His face was getting redder by the second and by the time he had moved to the other side of the table it was reaching a deep purple.

  “Fetch and Jack,” he said slowly and carefully. “Fetch and Jack, here in my trailer. You have no idea how I have wanted this moment to happen. I have dreamed about it these past weeks more than any other dream I have had. You incredible, living, walking, FLAPS!” he screamed. “Do you have any idea the trouble you have caused? You stupid, airheaded, abominations! What right do you even have to exist?”

  He moved toward us, getting in Fetch's face.

  "You couldn’t have just eaten him, huh?“ he scolded Fetch. “No, No, NO! You had to choose to go against nature itself. Do you have any idea how much work I have had to do on the internet to erase your fight in the parking lot?”

  He had walked back to his little table touching the back of his computer. He had a box just like Michelle had. He touched the laptop almost lovingly. You could hear him mumbling to himself. He gently shut his computer, and, to the surprise of everyone, he turned back around and charged us. His hands were claws and his face was a mask of cartoon rage.

  Molly had stepped in front of us and caught him as he launched at us, murder in his eyes, his hands reaching toward us like claws, wanting to scratch our eyes out.

  “Ah! “Said Smith, “Nothing like the passion of an Elf.”

  Fighting her, it took Molly shouting his name a few times before the little guy stopped trying to break away from her to get to us. Looking Molly in the face, he finally stopped and went limp.

  “Molly, dear," he said in a wavering voice, “one of my best pupils. Please tell them to leave. Please get them away from me. I just can’t help them no matter what it is. No, no, my heart can’t take the strain. No, please send them away dear please?”

  Talking calmly, Molly managed to get Pek to calm down. After a few angry glances and kicks in our direction and a half-mumbled promise not to charge us again, Molly let him go. He walked around to his chair again and sat at his computer, ignoring all of us.

  Speaking only to Molly, “Now dear, what can I do for you?"

  The emphasis on the word 'you' let us all know that he would not even acknowledge that the rest of us were even there. I looked at Fetch and could tell he was trying to keep from laughing. I didn’t blame him. Pek was like a demented Christmas elf. It was hard to believe he was this computer magician everyone kept talking about. It hadn’t gone unnoticed that he knew Molly. I wondered if Michelle had known that Pek seemed to be teaching fairies about computers. When I thought about it, I realized that, just a short time ago, I would not have stood here with fairies the way I was now. I had been told they were untrustworthy by one of the few people I considered a friend. I had no idea how Johnathen would react to all of this. Once again, I hoped I could change his mind about fairies. Pek, who worked with Michelle, seemed to know fairies, and, the way he was looking at Molly, was even fond of at least some of them. Could Johnathen have been wrong about all of the fairies? Maybe he had met some bad ones in the past and placed some kind of judgment on all of them. My head was spinning over all of this. I was beginning to realize that it was going to be a very hard task to convince Johnathen, and perhaps Michelle, that the fey were not all bad.

  Pek continued to rant in mine and Fetch's direction. He would go back and forth from looking furiously at me and Fetch, to looking fondly and sweetly at Molly. The others he completely ignored. It looked so comical it was very hard not to laugh.

  Pete was studying an empty box of chicken like it was the most interesting thing he had ever seen. Samantha had her hands over her mouth, shaking with uncontrollable laughter, while Smith looked at her with the stern stare of a teacher trying to silently warn a student before they said or did something they were going to regret. Once again I was reminded that I was now part of a world that just didn’t make much sense.

  Molly took over. She knelt down and began to talk to Pek, reassuring him that this was very important, or they would never have disturbed him. She was the only one of us who seemed to take this little guy seriously. I couldn’t help but stare at this creature wondering what he was. As Molly began to explain how we needed his help, he caught me staring at him. He jumped up onto his chair and threw a half empty soda can at me.

  “Stop staring at me! “He screamed.

  I was beginning to get a little annoyed by this guy. His high-strung attitude was getting us nowhere and time started to weigh heavy on me. The longer this took, the more Michelle might need our help. I hoped Johnathen wouldn’t be too mad at her. I remembered what he did to me in the hotel room. I didn’t think he would ever do that to Michelle, but as strange and as tired as he had been acting lately, I couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t do something he would later regret.

  I looked at the ceiling and tried to keep from looking at him. Pek sat back down and in a calm voice spoke to Molly.

  “Now dear, please tell this old elf what he can do to help you.”

  He seemed to act so sweet to Molly. I wondered what I could do to get on his good side, the crusty old elf. As soon as I thought the words I berated myself for thinking that. It really wasn’t fair to judge him that way. As far as I knew, he had been through a lot. His apparent ability to use computers must have made him an outcast from other magic realm people. He called Molly a pupil, meaning that he must be teaching others how to use computers, so he had to be a pretty smart guy. It was just hard to understand that, when he was chucking soda cans at my head.

  “Pek, we need to access someone’s Facebook page,” said Molly.

  Pek gave her a sad little look.

  “Molly, that is the first thing I taught you how to do,” he said in a trembling voice. “Have you already forgotten?”

  I was about to pipe up and say that I could do it when Smith spoke up.

  ”This page is one of your special pages, Pek.”

  Pek jerked in his seat as if he had sat on something sharp.

  “I don’t know what you are talking about, Smith,” he said in a high squeaky voice.

  Obviously he was lying. I began to pace a little, trying not to let all of this get to me. I should have just gone back to the hotel room and gotten on my own computer. I started to feel this was a waste of time. I reminded myself that Michele said to come here.

  “It was made by one of your favorite students, Pek," said Smith in calm, even voice. “One that you took under your wing, even though the council might have forbidden you to do so.”

  All eyes were on Smith at this comment and once again I was hit with the thought that there was more to this gnome than meets the eye.

  “The council is not always right,” said Pek. "They can be too easily influenced by fear and a lack of unders
tanding of what is new. You, young lady, should be mindful of that.”

  He was pointing at Samantha at that last statement. She looked at the small elf, her face turning red.

  “I have done more than you know,” she said. “I have opened discussions between members of the council that have allowed you to continue your work."

  “Not enough,” said Pek stubbornly. “You should have stepped in between your father and Johnathen long ago.”

  Once again I felt like I was being left in the dark over matters involving the magic realm. How was I ever to fit in with a group that seemed to have so many rules that I just didn’t understand?

  “I found Jack and tried to warn him about the dragon egg in his pocket. If he hadn’t been so stupid and stepped out into traffic, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now."

  ”Yes, perhaps not, but the problem would still be there. The council would still be arguing and we would still be learning what we need to learn in secret. Jack's stupidity may have set in motion things that needed to be set in motion. “

  “All right,” I said. I was getting a little annoyed at being called stupid. “Let’s just move on, ok? Michelle is not going to get the help she needs if we don’t stop this bickering. “

  Pek had once again stood up in his chair.

  “Did you say Michelle? Why didn’t you tell me it was her?"

  He sat down hard in his chair and began to furiously type on the keyboard, mumbling the whole time. I got a good look at his computer as he typed. I had never seen the symbol that was on the back of it before. It was not like any computer I had ever heard of. The whole thing glowed blue and would pulse as Pek typed on the keys. The design changed with every stroke of the keys. It reminded me of Molly’s blue light that surrounded her. Pek must have worked some kind of magic into this laptop, something I thought was impossible to do. Where there is a will there is a way, I guess. The whole time Pek was working on his computer he was mumbling to himself. Every once in a while I would hear words like 'Flap' and 'troll dung' come out of his mouth. I figured he was talking about me. I really needed to find out what flap meant.

  After a few minutes Pek let out a little grunt of satisfaction. He signaled me to come and look and I moved over to him. Fetch followed me around and Smith came over. I noticed that no one else in the room made a move toward the computer. They acted as if they were scared of it. I realized that they had the same reaction that most people would have if they were suddenly introduced to the magic world, untrusting and scared of the unknown. I needed to work on this with them.

  I glanced down at the Facebook page. Michelle’s smiling face was there on her time-line. All of her posts seemed to be questions regarding two things, dragons and tattoos. I knew that these were things close to her heart, but reading the questions I discovered that she was trying to get information from people about both. Questions of why people got their tattoos seemed to spread all through the page and I thought she was gathering information to give to Johnathen. But why? Why hadn’t I noticed this before? What would Johnathen want with information about tattoos? I read a post where she was encouraging people to check out my Facebook page, and I realized that I needed to thank Pek for keeping it around. His face was still red and I decided to wait until he was not so angry before bringing up that little fact.

  There was a blog that Michelle had written regarding the reasons why people got tattoos. I knew I was missing something, something that she was trying to tell me, something that very few people in the magic world would ever discover. Then a post popped up on her Facebook page. A simple post dated today:

  "All the cool dragons meet here, even my tattoo."

  There was a map that pointed to a single spot. I looked at the map. It named two streets I was familiar with. They were the cross streets where the tunnel that Fetch hatched off my leg was located.

  Chapter 34

  There was a loud booming sound outside of Pek's small trailer. It shook us all to the bone, vibrating through our bodies. All of a sudden the trailer was lifted into the air and then slammed down again. It was like a giant child had picked us up like a toy and then threw us down in anger. We all went flying through the small trailer. The power went out. The only light was the blue glow Molly was generating.

  I could hear Pek groaning. He was hurt, but I didn’t know how to get to him. He seemed to be buried underneath a pile of his empty chicken boxes. Smith was laying face down by Molly. She had her arms around him, protecting him in case another attack happened. Samantha was helping Pete up. He drew his sword, a wild look in his eye like he was ready for battle. There was a gash across his forehead that was bleeding freely. There was a strange glow to his blood. I felt a twinge in my hip as I got up. I had a strange wild thought about my hip. Even though I had gone through all of these amazing changes, I felt like one day I would still have to have my hip replaced. I looked around, and, in the low glow of Molly’s blue light, I couldn’t spot Fetch.

  “Fetch!" I yelled “Fetch, where are you?"

  He made a small sound. It sounded almost like he was groaning. I spotted him over by the small window. He was looking outside, his body was stiff as if he was getting ready to spring into action. A light had appeared outside. Fetch began to hum. The only time I had ever heard that sound before was when we first met in that tunnel. It was a sad and eerie thing to hear. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Smith had slowly moved to a sitting position with the help of Molly. He was staring at Fetch with a look of confusion on his face. Samantha had followed Pek's moans, after helping Pete get to his feet, and had successfully pulled him out of the middle of his avalanche of garbage. His computer was clutched to his chest and he kept his eyes tightly shut as if this was a bad dream that he could wish away.

  Seeing that everyone was ok, I turned my attention back to Fetch and his strange humming. I move cautiously toward him. He was seeing whatever had attacked us and seemed to be transfixed by it. I reached out to touch him and before I could ask him what was up a voice spoke.

  “Come on out, Jack. You and Fetch. We need to talk.”

  The voice sounded familiar. At first I couldn’t place it, and then it dawned on me. It was the voice from my nightmare in the tunnel. It was the voice of my nightmare brother telling me I was a burden. I didn’t know who was waiting for us outside, but I knew it had to be my mysterious attacker. He knew mine and Fetch's names and somehow he had tracked us here. I wished more than ever that Johnathen was here.

  I looked around at everybody in the trailer. Both Molly and Samantha had balls of attack light in their hands, and Pete's sword was glowing with a white energy. Smith had stood up and spread his arms. He was chanting in a language that was full of power. His very words had a weight to them and you could almost see them as they fell out of his mouth. Pek continued to sit there, his eyes shut.

  I could hear laughter outside and again, his voice amplified, he spoke.

  “It’s all just empty gesturing my friends. You don’t have the power to defeat me."

  The trailer was picked up and dropped again, not as high as last time but enough to let us know that he meant business. Pete moved toward the window. When he was standing next to me, he tried to look around Fetch. A light of pure energy shot through the window hitting his sword. He fell back as if hit by lightning, his sword reduced to a twisted black piece of metal.

  “Jack, I am beginning to get a little angry. If you don’t come out now, someone is going to get hurt.”

  I had no choice but to do what the voice said. I walked to the door and stood there. Fetch had never stopped looking out that little window.

  “Fetch,” I said. “Come on.”

  I wanted to ask him what he saw. I knew I was about to see it myself. I didn’t think this guy wanted to kill us. If he did, he would have already done it. Fetch's tail twitched and he moved over to my side. He had a look on his face that I had never seen before. It was like he was in some sort of trance. When we stepped out of the door
into the unnatural light, I understood why.

  It was just a silhouette standing there. It moved and twisted around and I knew what it was. It was the smoke from my nightmare. Smokey and oily, moving around like it wanted to change form. This was the thing that had attacked me in my dream. I was sure of it. Power was emanating from the smoke. Behind it was a red and gold scaled dragon the size of a house. Its long neck curved in the same 'S' shape as Fetch’s. It stared straight ahead not even looking at either one of us. Ignoring us as if we were beneath its notice. Its presence radiated power and its slow breathing gave off a heat that had me breaking out in a sweat.

  “Impressive, huh?” asked the voice. This is what Fetch should be, Jack. He should be like my good friend here.”

  At the word 'friend', the dragon glanced down at the black shadow. His eyes went from a green color to a dark red and the smoke coming out of his snout was the same color. He was not happy at being called 'friend' by this shadow. Then it hit me.

  “You have some sort of control over him.” I said.

  It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. The dragon glanced down at us as if telling us this was true. It was not happy at its situation. The shadow waved his hand in the air and a very familiar blue ball appeared. Dozens of goblins began to pour out of the orb. They were strangely quiet, just standing there waiting for an order to attack. I heard Pete rattle his sword behind me and knew that my little group of friends was behind me. The shadow laughed.

  “You really think you can stop me now?” he asked. “Now? I am more powerful than all of you combined and could destroy you with a flick of my hand.”

  “What do you want?” I asked ignoring his bragging.

  “Many things, Jack, many things, but first things first."

  He threw something at me from within the darkness. It landed at my feet. It was Michelle’s cell phone.

  “She is mine now, Jack. I caught her just outside of the club. Did you think that you and Fetch were the only ones that were important? She should have stayed safe. By leaving Jonathan's side and going into the club to expose herself and you, she betrayed the one who would protect her from harm."