She sighed. “James… I don’t think any of us should go back in there. Jolnavich said they had the media. That’s not just a power-hungry cabal gone rogue in the government. That’s a whole fucking conspiracy. That’s Soviet Russia type control. And since this happened, it’s not in the witches’ news. It’s all just there was an accident at the Agency headquarters in San Diego and at least two dozen agents were killed. That’s… How do we fight that?”
“Day by day. Witch by witch,” he said. “We make them see the propaganda for what it is. We encourage them to find the information for themselves, to set up their own structures. We keep building around, until we can fix what is within.”
“Do you really believe Parata's government can be saved, James? That corruption and power that embedded, infection that deep, can be drained?”
“I do. It is merely a matter of educating new witches, one by one, so they know not to believe all they are taught in the school, teaching them to think for themselves, and then leaving them to grow and run for these offices, and one day dismantle this corrupted bureaucracy.”
“I don't see it happening without a buttload of explosives, bulldozers and some bleach.”
“Ah, but I am far older than you. I have seen the world, even the magical one, recover from far worse. Propaganda only holds hearts and minds until the paper it is written on starts to rip from the rewrites. Have hope, my dear. The fact that we can now see the corruption means it is crumbling.”
“Hey, ol’ blue eyes.” Nathan appeared out of nowhere, making Zee hop in place. “New order forming.”
“Ah,” James said. “See, new witches to reach before the Agency does. This is how we do this. Where, Nathan?”
“Zee’s birthplace. Salt Lake City, Utah. And these feel like powerful ones.”
“Thank you. Have faith, Sarah. We have a psychic on our side.”
James disappeared and Nathan grinned. “We got more than that.” He tossed Zee a wink. “We got that fickle lady called fate playing for our team right now.”
“What? Why?” she asked. “What did you see?”
“Let’s just say I saw an itty bitty turning point in that vision I had. And she’s a spitfire. Ol’ blue eyes is about to meet his match. I can’t see much beyond that, too many possibilities, but that order just may help us win this war. James is right. No matter how much control the government has, there’s always hope. We just got to keep building.”
Flux
-a teddy dormer story by-
Michael David Anderson
first…
My name is Teddy Dormer, and up until recently, I was afflicted with a condition which inflicted insomnia upon others in my vicinity, consequently allowing me to experience their darkest dreams. I possessed no control over this ability and was subjected to it every night of my life. Now, however, I may experience others’ dreams, but I no longer render them sleepless. The catalyst for these changes may be a concussion, but it may also be exposure to other individuals with odd abilities, each of them experimented upon and created by a shadow organization known in some circles as Black 9.
My life is now in a state of flux, for I am becoming something else. Don’t misunderstand me: I’m still very much human, but my one defining condition has now been altered and I appear to be developing new abilities. Whereas before, I led a life of solitude and anonymity, Jessica Snow, my lover and long-time friend, now accompanies me on my journeys, for we both have been forced into exile in an effort to evade Black 9.
The following is an account of my experiences. It is neither fantasy nor fiction, despite what people would classify it as should they happen upon it. If this work ever does find its way onto bookshelves, it will be slapped with a fiction label and sold as cheap entertainment by an author named Sullivan Doyle rather than under my own name for reasons I assure you would make no sense to most people. I do not write this memoir as a means of obtaining fame and fortune, but rather to chronicle the madness of leading such a life and to make sense of it. Call it therapy, if you will.
Should you come into possession of this memoir in its intended form rather than publicized, this undoubtedly means I am certainly dead. If I were you, I would keep this a secret.
one
The night passed in a blur of shadow and headlights. Few vehicles populated the lonely road, and the trees disappeared into obscurity, illuminated only briefly ahead and then behind in an occasional red tinge of taillights.
I was tired, but only from the long drive. I was used to being lulled to sleep by the presence of others, but their somnambular habits no longer affected my consciousness. I was no longer a slave to their dreams and glad of it, but to feel so exhausted and be able to actively choose when I slept remained a foreign concept to me.
I glanced over at Jessica. She was reading a book I refused to read, but I knew its contents without having to ever read it. The author’s name was not mine, yet I had written every word contained therein in a prior memoir.
With a mini-lamp clamped to the novel’s rear cover, she read without assistance from the car’s interior dome light. Jessica would look up occasionally and fix me with a peculiar look before asking a question regarding the story, and I would answer it without hesitation, although in response to a couple of questions regarding my feelings for her I would fumble. I am not used to romance, and to talk so openly about my feelings, especially with her, was an awkward exercise for me; to have my feelings laid bare in a book and then have to explain them further was downright humiliating, but I endured it.
Shortly after having left her hometown of Scarborough Hill, we learned of the existence of the book, which was named after me. I vowed never to crack its spine or to leaf through its pages; Jessica, however, was determined to devour its secrets, for she was convinced there may be a nugget of information contained therein that might prove crucial to our life moving forward. “Sullivan might have hidden a message for us in the story somewhere,” Jessica explained the day she acquired her copy from a Ma and Pa bookstore. “If there’s anything that will afford us an advantage, we need to know.”
I didn’t argue. When Jessica set her mind to something, she intended to proceed. I would not stop her, nor did I want to. She may be able to make better sense of my past than I could.
She tore her attention from the pages to fix me with her cool gaze. “This Noah guy was an asshole.”
I didn’t divert my gaze from the road. We were in the wilderness, and I knew one distracted glance away would be all it took for a deer to leap into the dual cones of brilliance illuminating the night and wreck our vehicle. I merely nodded, adjusting my grip on the steering wheel. “He was.”
“And I can already tell Jill was a two-faced bitch,” she added. “She’s too damn happy.”
I already knew where she was in the story, and if you’ve read Doyle’s novel, you may also know. “We’re leaving the hospital, aren’t we?”
“Yes, you are.”
“I never should have gotten in their vehicle.”
“But you did.”
“And I shouldn’t have.”
“You’re too hard on yourself,” Jessica admonished, and returned her attention to the book.
Although I didn’t look at her before, I dared a glance now, risking a suicidal deer to observe Jessica reading, a look of utmost peace and concentration upon her features. Of all the horrors we have been through both apart and together, it still amazes to me we should wind up here, together, and that I should be so lucky to be with someone not only breathtakingly beautiful but also a wonderful companion in every sense.
I returned my gaze to the road. We passed a speed limit sign indicating we should go no faster than eighty kilometers per hour. We had crossed the border into Ontario two days prior, and it was still odd adhering to the metric system rather than imperial. We had used passports under assumed names, but not the ones we ultimately decided we would use to settle down; we were on the run, after all, and thought it best to take every precaut
ion to shake any potential pursuers. My contact, Will, arranged multiple identities for us, and we utilized them appropriately. For this leg of our journey, we were Alan and Tanya Pangborn. The officer at the border crossing had perked up, smiling, and asked me, “Are you the Sheriff of Castle Rock?” I didn’t get the reference. After we pulled away, Jessica told me Alan Pangborn was the name of a character in a few Stephen King novels.
The long drive was getting the better of me. I yawned.
Without tearing her eyes off the page, Jessica said, “Perhaps we should find a place to stay for the night.”
“I haven’t seen a hotel in hours.”
“Well, keep your eyes open. In the meantime, I’ll look one up.” And yet she kept reading.
I shot her a sideways glance.
“After I finish this page,” she added.
I smirked.
Thirty seconds later, Jessica flipped the page, inserted her page mark, which was an illustriously designed Tarot card featuring a hanged man, switched off the reading light, and set the book in the backseat. She then pulled her phone from the space between her thigh and the seat and opened the internet search function. She voice-searched for nearby hotels along the projected route and waited as results slowly populated. She grimaced. “I’m not getting the best signal out here.”
A break in the trees to the left rendered Jessica’s search moot. The clearing revealed a parking lot and, at its end, a small inn. The building’s nexus, where the two wings ultimately connected, looked like an oversized Victorian house, and the rest of the building’s exterior matched its style. A sign out by the road featured a basic yet straight-to-the-point name – THE INN – and its Vacancy sign was illuminated in red neon.
“I think we found a place without the wonders of technology,” I said.
Jessica frowned. “Of course, you did. You always do. I expect nothing less from a man who doesn’t own a cell phone.”
“They break too easily.”
“Not if you handle them with care.”
I laughed. “Are you actually reading that book? You know why I don’t carry a cell.”
Jessica rolled her eyes as I pulled into the parking lot. “Whatever you say, Alan.” She turned back to her phone. The results had finally populated, and she frowned. “That’s weird.”
“What’s that?” I asked as I killed the engine.
“This place isn’t on the map.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” I turned to her and winked. “A lot of places aren’t on the map.”
She smiled. “You would know.”
“You have no idea.”
I pulled the hatch release and got out of the car. We had traded Jessica’s Toyota Tacoma for something better on gas mileage. It wasn’t exactly my style – I preferred old school American muscle cars, having previously driven a Gran Torino and a Camaro in the past few months – but the Prius was spacious and accommodated our need to keep on the road for greater spans of time.
“I’ll grab the bags,” I told her as she stepped out into the night. The parking lot was mostly dark; there weren’t many lights out here, but the few that were in evidence cast an oppressive gloom over the inn. The night was overcast, so moonlight wasn’t available to further drive back the darkness.
“I’ll help.”
We rounded the back of the car, grabbed our essentials, and approached the front of the Inn. As we neared the front doors, the flesh on the back of my neck prickled and I shivered.
“You okay?” Jessica asked.
I nodded slowly, halting in my tracks. “I think so. Just a chill.”
Jessica balled her fist and tapped my bicep. “Come on. The sooner we get checked in, the sooner we can both get some sleep.”
“Yeah.”
She led us inside, neither of us knowing then a majority of our night would not be spent sleeping.
two
The lobby of the Inn was spacious – and far larger than it had any right to be. The exterior of the building looked as though it could only contain a lobby approximately an eighth this size. Something about this place felt incredibly off, and my intuition told me to trust nothing I saw here.
The lobby itself was immaculate, with intricately designed, lavish chandeliers hanging overhead and amazing detail in the woodwork. I felt as if I had been transported to a wondrous hall built hundreds of years prior; the design felt simultaneously European yet… alien, as if this space were only meant to give an impression of one’s expectations rather than accurately resemble one particular style.
Jessica and I had inadvertently stepped into the world of the weird once more. I was sure of it. Don’t ask me how, but it was almost as if aspects of the Inn were manifesting before my eyes just before my gaze fell upon them, from the chandeliers overhead to the ornate carvings in the wood at the front desk, then losing focus as soon as I turned away. The effect was jarring. I rubbed my eyes and shook my head mid-stride.
Jessica led the way to the desk, where an ageless woman stood. She seemed both incredibly young and exceptionally old, both naïve and wise. I might have pegged her in her late twenties or early thirties, but something about her demeanor suggested she could have easily been twice that age despite the fact she could have easily tricked the producers of a film to think she was younger than my initial estimates. Her hair was a brilliant shade of auburn red, and her green eyes, which seemed to spark with tinges of hazel, pierced me with a single glance. She smiled at our approach. A name tag with her moniker – CindyLou – was pinned to the voluptuous curvature of her yellow blouse.
Hanging behind her, almost above her head, was an elaborate dreamcatcher: blue, and laced through with feathers and beads.
Jessica smiled and leaned forward at the counter, where, to her immediate right, a sign-in ledger sat. Accompanying the ledger wasn’t a pen but a feather quill, and next to the ledger was a small ink container. A long list of signatures appeared on the sheet, some in messy scrawls, others in penmanship as fanciful as calligraphy.
I was used to talking to the house staff in hotels from years of driving from town to town, but since Jessica and I began traveling together, she had appropriated this duty. It wasn’t something we discussed; she had simply become the architect of our stories whenever it was necessary, and I filled in details when prompted. In film, you often witnessed characters blunder through cover stories, but we complimented each other so seamlessly we might have been spies in another life.
Even as Jessica rested her forearms against the wood and leaned toward CindyLou, the vixen leaned forward as well and beamed, “Welcome to the Inn! I’m glad you can stay the night with us.” Her voice, while even, contained a hint of southern twang to it, as if she had grown up in the south then spent years elsewhere, determined to rid herself of the accent.
Jessica laughed. “Out here in the middle of nowhere, I’m sure you don’t get too many visitors.”
CindyLou’s smile widened, and I caught a glimpse of a fleeting, knowing look. “Oh, you’d be surprised. We get guests from everywhere.”
I turned and surveyed the lobby. Save for the three of us, it was currently empty, or so I initially thought. Upon further investigation, I noticed a small game area at the far end of the chamber. Sitting in the corner on either side of a chess board were two gentlemen, one bare-chested, muscular yet toned, and scarred, the other dressed in a three-piece suit. As I watched them, the bare-chested gentleman drank from a mug of ale and set it back down with a sigh of satisfaction. He noticed me watching, offered a smug grin, and returned to his game.
I’m dreaming, I thought. I have to be. This feels too much like a dream to be real. My perception of reality coming into focus only as needed reinforced this idea.
“How much for a room?” Jessica asked.
“Thirty ought to do it.”
Jessica raised an eyebrow. “Thirty even?”
“If you want to include gratuity, I won’t mind.”
Jessica shot me a quizzical look as she
reached into her bag and extracted her own small wallet. From it, she retrieved thirty dollars in Canadian currency and handed them over.
“No gratuity,” CindyLou pouted. “Pity. Sign the ledger, if you please. Both of you. We like to keep a record of our guests here at the Inn, after all.”
Jessica dipped the quill in the ink and carefully scratched her name into being. She blanched, and I registered wonder and alarm in her eyes. She handed the quill over, and I went to sign my cover name beneath hers. Halfway through, I glanced up at hers. She should have signed Tanya Pangborn, but instead her name was as it was given to her: Jessica C. Snow.
After signing as Alan, I set the quill aside and studied my handiwork. I was aghast to find I had also signed my real name, middle initial X included, although I had purposefully made the movements to sign my alias.
CindyLou smiled. “The ledger isn’t easily fooled, Mr. Dormer,” she said. “You need not worry about hiding your true identities in these halls. The Inn saw fit to bring both of you here, after all.” She handed Jessica the room key. Whereas most hotels had transitioned to electronic key cards, this was an actual key, and its handle featured an ornate design. Jessica turned it end over end as she studied it. “You’re in Room 2119. Enjoy your stay.”
An uneasy seed of worry churned in my stomach. I shook my head and said, “I don’t believe we’ll be staying after all.”
CindyLou’s smile faded. “I don’t believe you can leave just yet. You won’t be able to drive away. I’ve noticed your car is no longer out the front doors.”
Alarm seized both of us, and as we turned, Jessica demanded, “Did someone jack our car?”
I was already halfway across the lobby when CindyLou said, “No, it’s exactly where you left it.”
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