Got To Be A Hero

by Paul Duffau

  She sought a sign to lead her to the device and called on the Glade to provide it. A heat grew on her skin, but she kept her eyes sealed. Pulling more magic to her will, she declared in a whisper, “I need to find the object that Lassiter seeks.”

  The untruthfulness behind her words agitated the magic. Kenzie fought for control and her center. Water formed behind her eyelids, and she resorted to honesty.

  “I need to save Mitch.”

  Instantly, a vortex in the magic swirled into being, the terminus at her chest, pulling and lifting her. Her back arched as her feet left the ground, the inexorable force seizing her. After a first, frantic flinging of arms and legs from surprise, Kenzie surrendered to the forces, arms extended and toes pointed to the ground below.

  Chest heaving with tremulous breaths, she tried to open her eyes and found that she could not. There was no pain, or even strain as she tried harder. Despite her inability to observe all that was happening, she could feel herself transported through little clues: the swing of her hair, the shifting of her robe, chill wind raising goose bumps on the skin as it blew past.

  Kenzie held one thought tight and bright in her mind, repeating it as a mantra or a prayer, “save Mitch.”

  The tops of her toes brushed against grass, and Kenzie tipped her toes skyward. She landed lightly on the balls of her feet, as carefully as a delicate piece of porcelain was set away into the china cabinet. The pressure of the vortex, having borne her, dissipated into nothingness.

  Testing, Kenzie opened her eyes, looking heavenward. The stars filled the sky, more numerous than before, but the moon didn’t reside in its customary position. She dropped her gaze, saw the moon on the low horizon, backlighting the white marble altar with The Incantaraus and casting a long shadow toward her. Kenzie could make out the shape of something that used the darkness for concealment. When she peered into the darkness more closely, a huge head rotated to face her, and Kenzie lurched back a step.

  A gytrash lay on its haunches in front of her, the glow from the eyes spooky red. Its length blocked the altar. Kenzie stared, tension at the sides of her eyes. The gytrash dropped his lower jaw and exposed canine teeth like small daggers.

  Kenzie’s gaze flitted to the sides, up to the ancient leather-bound book on the surface of the marble, back to the gytrash.

  “Are you here to destroy me or to guide me?” She couldn’t keep the fear out of her voice.

  The gytrash rose. Its head reached Kenzie’s shoulders, and its elongated body, higher in front than its hips at the rear, rippled with muscle. Its coat glistened, unlike that of the beast that Harold had conjured. A tail half the length of the body swished in the air. The creature turned to face her and took one step in Kenzie’s direction.

  Kenzie sought magic to ward off the gytrash, then stopped. The Glade had brought her here, and the gytrash, too. Deep inside her, she looked for trust.

  The beast took another step, and the peaty smell of the Glade took on a bitter tang of animal sweat. Its eyes burned and never left her. The huge head dropped as though the animal were shifting into stalking behavior.

  Kenzie held her ground. I handled a snake.

  Two more steps brought the gytrash to Kenzie. The eyes bored into hers, and the black snout lifted, scenting the air.

  The smell from the beast was pervasive, not foul, nor clean, but sharp and real. Terror pressed against her heart as though it would crush it as the snout continued toward her face. Violent tremors rattled her bones.

  “Will you help me?”

  The snout touched her nose, gently, and sniffed. The soft black skin was cool but the panted air exhaled from the beast was hot and damp.

  Kenzie didn’t breathe during the intimate inspection.

  The massive forehead turned to an angle, in the manner of a puppy who sees a cat for the first time and is unsure what to do about it. He backed up a step, then a second, then turned and padded to the side, leaving her a clear path to the altar.

  “Thank you,” Kenzie said in a hoarse whisper.

  She staggered forward and rested her weight against the cold stone.

  The Incantaraus sat closed in front of her. The script curlicued across the cover, glowing with a starry sheen. Hesitantly, she reached and turned the cover, opening the volume. The title repeated on a ivory-colored page, rough cut at the edges. With the title came a warning in a scrolling hand. Be warned, Wizard, that the Magic serves Itself.

  It sure wasn’t serving her, thought Kenzie. She lifted the edge of the page—or tried to, as the paper did not move. Flummoxed, she used her thumb at the corner to rifle through the book, but the sensation was more like running her fingers on the edge of a sculpture of a book than touching an actual tome.

  So how the heck do you get anything out of it? Kenzie strained in concentration for a clue, a guide. She was getting a little tired of puzzle-solving, between opening the safe, getting into the Glade, and now finding the memory storage for Lassiter. . . .

  The last part of that thought brought her up short. The marble was bare except for the book of spells, but the magic had delivered her here first. True, she planned to swipe a spell (or two or three) to deal with that cold-hearted creep, Lassiter, but until she had the secrets in hand, she couldn’t initiate her scheme.

  A small tinge of guilt pressed her at holding out on Mitch, but it was for his own good.

  “So where is the damn memory?” she asked aloud.

  The ground under her shook, rattling the leaves in the Glade, and the air in front her shimmered.

  Earthquake?

  Gasping in disbelief, she gripped the edge of the white altar for support. The Glade should have been immune to events outside, even one of the small earthquakes that periodically shook Seattle. Blinking rapidly, she looked around. The gytrash met her gaze with a languorous loll of its long tongue but seemed otherwise unconcerned. The shaking tapered away. Kenzie let go and scanned the area, worried that the Glade might have sustained damage. It looked normal, other than the moon on the horizon. Glancing in front of her, she froze. The Incantaraus lay open to the middle pages. Sitting incongruously on the right-hand side was an SD card, black against the buff paper, with its distinctive snipped corner. The label faced her, announcing the brand and capacity, a whopping sixty-four gigabytes.

  Well, okay.

  She picked up the card and set it off to the side, pushing it away from the magical book. Kenzie went to flip through the pages again to peruse the incantations, but the book had resumed its stubborn refusal to move.

  “So I have to ask?”

  The beast to the side snorted as though mocking her ineptness. In front of her, the pages shimmered, which she took as an affirmative. Magic sometimes was a total pain in the butt.

  “What incantation can I use to neutralize Lassiter?”

  The book did the shimmy-shake routine again, but produced another blank page.

  “What, do I have to say please?”

  Another affirmative.

  Kenzie wondered who had created The Incantaraus, because whoever it was deserved a talking-to. Magic should perform according to set principles and actions, not on a whim or a “please.” She sighed, and asked, “Please give me a spell to zap Lassiter?” It came out more flippant than she intended, but the book reacted with alacrity, the page blurring before letters popped into bold text, How to Tune a Ward to an Individual, across the top.

  She had never heard of a tunable spell. Intrigued, she read the directions, noting the actions were very similar to what her father had shown her, with an additional step at the end and one extra component. That one, she saw, would be a big problem. She needed to get a piece of Lassiter. The directions suggested a hair or piece of fingernail.

  How the heck . . . ? She couldn’t walk up to him and say, “Excuse me, sir, could I have a hair or two?”

  Reading the directions a second time for more clues on how to pull off the spell, she noted that the quantity necessary to activate the magic was not specified
.

  “Does that mean that any amount, no matter how minuscule, will work?”

  The words blurred, sharpened. She reread for the third time. The instructions had changed, adding a single clause. Thou shalt secure some small sliver of thy intended victim, of any size, ere thee attempt the final binding.

  Kenzie nodded in grim satisfaction. She could manage that. Once she had Lassiter targeted, she would use the Linius spell to hold him. . . .

  The Glade convulsed again, and Kenzie cried out, “I didn’t ask anything.” The violence made her lose her balance, and she had to use the altar again to remain upright. The SD card jumped on the surface, and a sickening odor of charred meat filled the air.

  When it stopped, finally, Kenzie stared down at The Incantaraus.

  She felt the blood drain from her face and her scalp crawled as though insects had infested her hair. The tome rejected her idea of lashing Lassiter in a web of magic until someone else took care of him. With mounting revulsion, she understood the obligation that magic was placing on her, to defend and protect. No mere binding spell this, but a powerful and deadly incantation.

  A Fire spell.

  Chapter 49

  Mitch pulled his Camaro to the curb to wait for Kenzie. He shot a glance up to the door of the church, but she wasn’t in sight yet. A fast check of the mirrors didn’t reveal anything suspicious, so he popped the stick into neutral and held his foot on the brake. He wasn’t parking in an illegal zone, he was only stopping.

  Come on.

  The huge oak door swung open, easily twice the height of Kenzie, and she stepped into the daylight. Mitch leaned forward to take a quick gander at the interior, but the darkness was impenetrable. Mitch took in the grim expression that Kenzie wore, and his optimism sank like the sun setting, not a fast kerplunk, but a slow descent to night’s bleakness.

  The door moved ponderously to close, but before the gap pinched completely, a dog, the tallest and lankiest that Mitch had ever seen, slithered through, and trotted to the shadows under the trees, disappearing like a phantom. Mitch pulled his shoulders back to ward off the feeling at the base of his neck.

  A grim-faced Kenzie yanked on the door latch and climbed in.

  He was about to ask her where the dog came from when she spoke.

  “I got it, let’s go,” she said, her words as hard as the set to her jaw.

  “You got it?” he asked. At the surprise in his voice, she turned to face him. “I mean, you . . .” He gestured toward his face. “You don’t seem, uh, excited.” Sensing the inanity in his words, he shut his mouth, though his brain went racing ahead.

  What’s the right word for stealing data? he wondered. “Excited” ain’t it. “Guilty” would fit, but Kenzie didn’t appear guilty. Or scared. Or happy or anything else he expected. Instead, she seemed more like burdened.

  “Let’s go,” Kenzie repeated, avoiding his eyes. She slouched in her seat. “Can we be ready tonight?”

  Nodding, Mitch put the car into first gear. “We can. I dunno about Lassiter. I’m guessing he’ll want this resolved as quickly as possible, so probably.” He checked the mirrors—then checked over his shoulder to the church. For an instant, he thought he’d seen a face at a window, but now it was blank, reflecting the trees and sky. “I’ll call him after I drop you off.”

  Place was creepy, he decided.

  Mitch barged into Mercury’s study without knocking. The wizard sat in a chair reading, legs crossed at the ankles.

  “Do you ever do anything?” asked Mitch.

  “Other than deal with intemperate youths?” replied Mercury, putting the book down on his lap. “Of course I do. I study my Art. Wizards don’t pop out, able to turn brash teenagers into frogs from the get-go. It takes practice.”

  Mitch paced the length of the room, ignoring the rebuke. “It’s time to do something about Jackson. We’re moving tonight.”

  “Are you sure that you want to continue along this path?” Mitch stared at him, so Mercury continued, “As you will. I can start the process now. I will have his family to safety by six this evening. Is that sufficiently prompt?”

  “Yeah, that should work. Lassiter will want to work in the dark, when there are fewer people to notice what’s going down.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  Mitch felt his gut tighten and he stopped pacing to meet Mercury’s stare. “Then I’m more screwed than I thought.” He scanned the room, impatient at the delay. “Will Kenzie’s dad do his part? If he doesn’t show up, the whole thing comes apart.”

  “I think that is the last of your worries. A greater one is if Lassiter refuses to play along with your plan.”

  “He’s not going to. As soon as he knows the location, he’s going to take control back. For starters, he’s not going to let himself be limited to a single road off the island that’s less than a half mile from Kenzie’s house. I’d be really surprised if he didn’t plan for a boat to pick him up. But he’ll show up at the amphitheater, because that’s where the data card will be.”

  Mercury’s left eyebrow raised, but the wizard didn’t say anything.

  Mitch resumed pacing. “You sure you can handle Jackson?”

  “Do you wish to be a frog?”

  Anger roiled in his blood, and Mitch glared at Mercury. “I think I’m the toad. Or sacrificial goat.” He inhaled. “Okay, let me call Lassiter.”

  A voice with a curt “Leave your message” answered the phone on the other end. Likely a bounce to another phone through a network to prevent tracing, thought Mitch. The man was not dumb.

  At the beep, he simply said, “We have it. Seward Park Amphitheater.”

  And the waiting began.

  Chapter 50

  The smoke from a neighbor’s grill, heavy with the odor of meat cooking, made Kenzie’s stomach turn. In her hand, Kenzie held the choker, the gem hanging off the edge of her palm, quiescent at the moment. Testing it with magic had produced no notable result. She’d been able to light a spark in it yesterday, yet today she couldn’t replicate the glow. The gem had blocked her from giving in to her anger and destroying the house. That part was okay, but it kept magic out of reach. That made it more than a curiosity and something pretty to wear for Mitch. It was dangerous, and treacherous, too. And a welcome distraction, something to focus on instead of perfecting the Fire spell.

  She questioned the missing setting. A second stone, for a second purpose.

  Kenzie turned the amulet—it had to be an amulet, a powerful one—over. No marks were visible in the silver etchings. Turning it back gem side up, she studied the broken mount in the heart of the piece. The ends were twisted as though whatever stone had been set there had been removed by force. It added to the queasy sensation in her stomach. A battle. Whoever had worn the amulet had probably lost, else it would still be intact.

  She took a deep breath. Tonight loomed. Getting out of the house was going to be a problem. Sneaking out her window might work again, but with the upgrades to the wards, trying to bypass them while jumping off the roof of the garage bordered on reckless. She dismissed the worry. She’d think of something.

  Do I have the courage? she thought. Can I be a full-fledged enchantress?

  The amulet’s single gem swayed with the trembling of her hand, and Kenzie clenched hard around the broken setting, the sharp points impaling her palm. Sighing, she went to the closet and rehid it next to the data card. When Mitch got the time from Lassiter, she’d be able to get to it quickly, but no one else would tumble to its presence.

  Tasks such as putting an end to the threats and to Lassiter didn’t fall to children. That was the message that The Incantaraus had delivered, but she didn’t feel ready.

  I don’t want to be ready, not for this.

  Tears threatened. She closed her eyes and breathed deep. With the rest of the world cut off, she calmed herself.

  The odious task sickened her, but the Magic, for whatever reason, had placed a responsibility upon her. She held on to that logic
, sought comfort in its righteousness. Lassiter threatened her world, magical and Mitch. She could make him pay the price for his evil.

  Eyes still shut tight, Kenzie promised herself that she would be the obedient servant. She would incinerate Lassiter.

  With a shudder, she went over the Fire spell again and again to dispel the doubts she had.

  The text from Mitch arrived at a quarter after eight, right after sunset.

  10pm. i’ll meet you across the street @ 9:30

  Kenzie’s breath caught. She was curled into a recliner in the living room alone with a book, turning unread pages while she waited. In her pocket was the data card and the pebble she’d turned into an on-demand light.

  She had suffered through dinner, avoiding conversation by the simple expedient of keeping her head down. She caught Sasha shooting frowns in her direction, but an air of satisfaction perversely accompanied them. Kenzie felt too stretched to worry about Sasha’s machinations. Her father ate efficiently and excused himself from the table early, barely acknowledging her.

  When it pushed close to nine thirty, Kenzie unfolded and stood, listening to assess any reaction. Clacking from the keyboard in the den told her Sasha was preoccupied. Her dad was nowhere in sight.

  “I’m going to bed,” she announced. A barest of hesitations in the clicking keys signified Sasha heard her. Heart bruising her ribs, she walked to the front door instead of the stairwell, eased open the heavy door, and slipped into the night. She held the latch open until the door was seated against the weather stripping to mute the noise of the mechanism.

  She waited, ears straining to hear any indication over the rush of pounding blood that she was busted. With a start, she realized that standing on the front porch under a light was profoundly irrational if she was trying to avoid detection. Three quick strides took her to the steps. She descended into the dark and went looking for Mitch.