by Lee Isserow
Of course, they had no intention of telling their children of this plan. That would counteract their wish to give them a perfect childhood. Mary and Chris brought up Yolanda and Leon as if they were still in love, and that was just the first of many lies that were the foundation of their family unit. And the key to why the Groenewald family did not feel like a family.
That lie was the first thing to be shared in their communal dreamscape. And there was no judgement that came from the children, when they discovered the truth of their parents' disconnection. With the help of the whispers that permeated the Dream Realm, the young Groenewalds accepted it, they understood it, and as a family, the four of them got past it.
Mary and Chris's relationship was doing better than it had been after the birth of their children, perhaps even better than it was before their birth. And the children had felt closer to their parents than ever before.
Over the last twenty three nights, they had finally become a family, and not just a family, but a perfect family, the kind of family that Yolanda had only ever seen on television.
A bell tolled in the periphery of all four of the Groenewalds, and they knew that the lessons for the night had come to a close. They bid one another farewell, embraced as a unit, and thanked the whispers once again for reuniting them―and uniting them. The whispers told them it was a pleasure to see the family so happy, and was very proud of them for excelling at their studies.
One by one, the Groenewalds left the Dream Realm, and returned to the Natural World, leaving the whispers alone once more.
But the whispers were never truly alone, for they had many people, many families, just like the Groenewalds that were willing to learn.
And it was more than willing to teach.
10
Meat left on the bone
EPICENTRE, THE CIRCLE
Deep below the centre of operations, Raven and Shana watched as Mikhail Carver inspected the corpse of the seared perpetrator from the bank.
“Curious,” he muttered to himself, as he leaned over to look at what was left of the body.
“What is curious?” Shana asked.
“Not a sliver of flesh left on the chap, not a drop of blood either. . . hard to tell if the chap has magick if there's no blood. . . and even in cases of immolation, there's still usually some meat left on the bone. . .”
“Please don't refer to the dead guy like he's part of a buffet,” Raven grumbled. She was not in a good mood―there had been a tension in the air ever since they returned from the field, an unspoken implication that she was entirely responsible for the lack of a living assailant that may be able to furnish them with information as to what the hell was going on.
Carver glanced to her ever so briefly, then reached to the calf of the corpse. He pulled some flecks of burned blackness from the bone and chewed on them―much to the disgust of the two operatives that observed the procedure.
“Just as I thought!” he proclaimed.
“Disgusting. . .?” Raven asked.
“Not a drop of magick as far as I can taste.”
“You. . . can taste magick?” Shana found herself asking, as she tried not to mull on why her gag reflex wasn't kicking in.
“No, I can't taste magick. . . but of course, as I said, there's not exactly meat left to judge such things.”
He raised his hands over the body, made the palms meet, and twisted them until his fingers locked against one another at the distal phalanx. He tugged hard, and a loud crack rang out as the burned body's ribs ripped open. He continued to whip his hands around, and as he did so, the auto-psy carried itself out. Raven and Shana tried their best to hold in their disgust as the charred organs pulled themselves out of what was left of the body, and were raised to Carver's face, each one being smelled or licked until he came to a conclusion.
“Contrary to first inspection, I don't believe the immolation was your fault, Miss Shaffec-Argo.”
“Bloody right,” Raven grunted in response.
“I'd say that it's suspicious that there is neither meat nor blood left. . . it's almost as if there was a self-destruct command implanted somehow, were he to be captured. . . in some hope that we would not be able to perform an autopsy.”
“How would that be possible, to implement such a command―I know of no casting that could do such a thing. . .”
“That's not even the most curious thing, as suggested, I can't detect more than a single percent of magick within the body. . . even with my advanced techniques―”
“Don't call licking a body 'advanced'.” Raven muttered.
“Even with my specialized skills,” he corrected “I can tell you for certain that, this perpetrator is most definitely mundane, thus the command of magick by his hand was most certainly close to impossible.”
“And yet it happened. . .” Shana insisted. “We both saw it―and saw the many people that died as a result of this man's action.”
“That leads us to an eventuality that none of us truly wish to discuss. . .“ Carver said, as he wiped his mouth with a napkin and deposited it in a trash can. “If this man is indeed a mundane and was able to utilise magick. . . that might mean that somehow the status quo has changed. . . Thus, it could very possibly happen again, and if this continues to occur, at perhaps a grander scale, our dear leader Mister Faith might well have to speak up and tell the mundane population that the world is not as it seems. . .”
A ringing punctuated the silence left by Carver's statement, and Raven turned to Shana with a concerned look on her face. Faith's stern visage was hanging in their mind's eye, and he'd only call for one reason―another incident had been reported.
11
Unwritten from reality
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
Shana and Raven were teleported onto the hot tarmac of Parkhurst Primary School's parking lot, and it was immediately clear that all was not as it should be.
They sunk into the ground beneath their feet, a smell of molten tar in the air as, steam rose around them. The parking lot was no longer a solid grey surface, it bubbled and spat angrily, and did its best to attempt to sear and burn their tactical gear. Shana was glad they had the opportunity to change before being whisked off for this field assignment, as she feared the heat might have set her own clothes alight.
She glanced over to Raven, who had decided to take the lead, and tugged her boots from the tar to follow. The closer they got to the building of the school, the more heat radiated off towards them.
“Need to cool this place down. . .” Raven grunted, as the sweat poured from her brow. She cast to take control of the air around them, and sent it moving across the campus. It picked up speed, cycled around and around the building, and took the heat with it.
She gestured for Shana to move her feet, and continued to manipulate the air. Shana took another step, and the tarmac was more solid. The step after that, it was practically as it should have been.
Raven smiled to herself and let the air get back to its normal flow. But as soon as she did, the tarmac began to bake and boil all over again.
“Looks like someone doesn't want you on solid ground. . .” Tali muttered in their periphery.
“Or it is just a side effect,” Shana suggested. “Of whatever is happening inside.”
“Only one way to find out. . .” Raven chuckled, as she strode with confidence towards the building.
“Do me a bloody favour,” Faith grumbled in her ear. “Don't go in all guns blazing, there are kids in there.”
Raven rolled her eyes. As gung-ho as she was on missions, it should have gone without saying that she would never risk the lives of children in the process of getting the job done―whether they be magickal or otherwise.
She walked towards the double doors of the main school building and took a quick look around. The doors were mostly made of clear glass in a metal frame, and from the operatives' position outside, it looked as though the corridor into the heart of the school was completely empty. No sign of anything m
agickal occurring within. With a shrug, Raven reached for the handle to the door on the right and pulled it open.
Shana heard the scream before she heard the glass shatter. She saw the shower of blood before she registered that that the glass had torn itself from the frame, cracked into shards, and had spun through the air towards Raven like the blades of a blender.
Raven had been faster to react than Shana, but the wildly thrashing shards still caught her as she dropped to the floor to escape their path, and took most of the flesh from her right shoulder and arm in the process. Her meat was being chopped right above her head, the blood only spattered momentarily, quickly it was reduced to a fine mist that lazily floated down on her, on Shana, and across the front of the building as the blades pulverised what it had cut from the bone.
“Bloody bastard bollocks!” Raven grunted, as she tried to apply healing glyphs with a left hand that shook frantically.
Shana dropped to her knees and drew out the glyphs herself, before she proceeded to drag Raven from under the glass blades. She was rewarded with a shower of expletives and yet more blood in her face.
“What the hell was that?” Tali asked.
“Boobies trap,” Shana said, as she inspected Raven's wounds to make sure they were healing.
“Just like at the bastard bank. . .” Raven grunted, as she made a fist with her left hand and punched at the ground repeatedly in an attempt to gate the pain.
“Whoever―whatever―is giving mundanes the gift of magick,” Shana muttered, “they are teaching them to keep their secret safe. . . They do not want to be caught.”
“Of course they don't bloody want to be caught!” Raven said, through gasps as the musculature of her arm stitched itself together, and the blood that stained her clothes began to crawl back into her veins.
“But these are not castings I have been taught. . .“ Shana said, as she tried to explain her line of thought. “I understand the concept, and could implement them, but they are not. . . normal. They require imagination.”
“Spit out whatever you're trying to say.” Faith growled.
“The mundane mind, it has a wider berth for imagination, because it is limited by it being mundane. That is how they come up with great works of literature, of fantasy. By being born into magick we are, in some ways, at a disadvantage in that regard.”
“Well, we may be at a disadvantage when it comes to imagination,” Raven grunted, as she took her eyes off what was left of her wound, and flexed the fingers of her right hand to confirm that she was able to use it once again. “But I'm sure as hell not going to let some mundy get away with trying to chop me up. . .”
She rose to her feet and glared at the door. With a simple gesture, they were blown off their hinges and flew deep into the building, flipping over themselves as they rocketed away from the entrance, and both slammed into the wall at the far end of the corridor.
Her eyes narrowed as she glanced back over to Shana with a wicked smile on her lips. “Let's go take a bloody role call. . .”
Shana watched as Raven stepped into the building, her hands ahead of her with sigils pre-cast, just waiting for the final gesture to seal them. She wasn't going to be taken for a fool again. As was prepared to enact bloody vengeance on whoever had tried to cut her into pieces.
“I am concerned. . .” she whispered to Tali. “Raven is acting more violent than usual.”
“That's going to happen when you're attacked. . . Think about how mundanes react whenever there's a terrorist incident, it's all blood and fury, and that's all Raven can see right now. Just keep an eye on her, I'm sure she'll be fine.”
Shana walked towards the entrance, and swallowed over a lump in her throat. There was a possibility that nobody seemed to be discussing. This magickal disturbance was occurring at a school, and there was a significant chance that the perpetrator was not an adult. . . but a child.
She picked up pace and caught up with Raven just as she turned a corner and began to look through the windows of classrooms, cautious not to get too close and risk another assault from the glass.
“What is wrong?” Shana asked, as she approached the first classroom. Raven's gaze was frozen on the window.
The question did not need to be asked, a glance of her own told her more than any words could. An entire class was inside, some forty students and a teacher. And each of them was still, with a rough, grey texture to their skin and hair and clothes. They had been turned to stone.
Shana reached for the door handle, and Raven slapped her hand away.
“Can't go in and deal with every damn problem one at a bastard time. . . This probably ain't the worst we're gonna see here, and we need to cut this thing off at the head.”
She didn't want to agree. There was every possibility that whoever was responsible for this had no idea what they were doing, or were acting without thinking, without the proper guidance from someone that understood the power they had at their fingertips. But despite her reservations, she had to admit that Raven's assessment was correct. Not in her desire to destroy the source of the problem―that was abhorrent to her, and in violation of everything she had been taught. It was the polar opposite of what every drop of Amazonian blood that flowed through her veins told her was 'the right thing' to do.
What she did agree with was that they would have to find the source of all this errant magick before it got worse, before it spread beyond the confines of the school. And more importantly: before Faith made an executive decision that would likely result in the entire suburb being unwritten from reality. . .
12
One step closer
Isaiah Faith could not hear Shana's internal narrative as he watched through her eyes. But as she pulled her gaze from the classroom window, and moved to the next one, his own thoughts were following exactly the same path as the one she feared to tread
There were no pupils in the next classroom, nor a teacher. Instead, there were close to forty puppies, and a large dog that sat on the desk at the front of the class. The classroom after that had neither people, nor animals. All that was present was a thick pool of sludge that caked the floors, as if those that were once present had been reduced to their base elements, returned to a state of primordial ooze.
Faith grimaced as his operatives moved on to the next classroom, and the next, each of them as bad―or worse―than the last. There was a terrifying amount of power being displayed there. More than any trained magickian would use in the same situation. They would be more restrained, let alone know that it was not becoming to use their natural gifts in such a public environ―or in such destructive ways. As if he wasn't already well aware, this situation made it clear that in the hands of mundanes, magick was not only deadly, but had the possibility of being catastrophic.
Something had to be done about it. And he was prepared to do whatever it took to make sure the spread would stop.
*
There was no sign of the source of the magickal disturbance on that wing of the building, and so Raven and Shana retraced their steps to get back to the main corridor. As soon as they arrived at the hallway by the entrance, they were both put on edge.
The doors were no longer the shattered remnants they had been when Raven blew them off the hinges. They were repaired, and had returned to their rightful place in the door frame.
Raven switched up the sigils on her fingertips. Her previous castings were only going to incapacitate whoever they came across. She was now suitably freaked-out enough to not want to risk simply knocking the source out. . . She was going to take them out for good.
They crossed the hall with trepidation, and made their way to a corridor on the other side, lined with yet more classrooms. But there was something different about the first room they came to, that set it apart from the others. There was a sound coming from within.
Shana peered through the window, and the first thing that caught her eye was a gleaming, beautiful statue. It looked as though it was sculpted from ice, the features so perfe
ct and intricately cut. But given what they had seen thus far, it was clearly not a statue.
In front of it were smaller sculptures, each of them retaining fewer features than the one that stood at the head of the class. They were smaller, and they were melting.
The sound was not coming from the statues. It was coming from the far corner of the room. And it was not the sound of gleeful celebration, as one might expect from a mundane discovering they had command of magick. There was no joy at all coming from the survivors of the arctic chill that had washed across the class.
It was the sound of crying.
Shana reached for the door handle, but thought better of it. There was every chance that it had been enchanted or warded or cursed or trapped, like the doors they had come across before. She took a breath, and dissipated through the molecules, pulling herself back together inside the classroom.
There was a palpable chill in the air, and Shana could feel the frost forming on her skin―not only on her skin, but under her skin. It was as though the blood was freezing in her veins, the saliva in her mouth solidifying, creating tiny icicles on the roof of her mouth and around her tongue. Even her eyeballs felt as though they were becoming blocks of ice.
She fought against the cold and stepped towards the source of the sound. As she walked, she sealed a surreptitious casting that sent a ripple of warmth across her body, melting everything that was becoming frozen. As Shana moved across the class, she got a clear line of sight to the far corner of the room, and discovered where the sniffs and cries were coming from. Two children: a girl no more than ten, and a boy who barely looked five or six.
She stopped dead in her tracks as they noticed her approach, and shot them a calm and reassuring smile. “It is okay,” she said. “I am here to help.”