Magic and Mayhem: A Collection of 21 Fantasy Novels

by Jasmine Walt

  “Jeremy, pick up those feet and run,” came his uncle’s urgent voice.

  There was something else in there, too. It was engrained in his voice, burning with its own dancing fire of life. It was something deep and rich. Why hadn’t he noticed that before?

  “Take your father and go! Don’t stop until you get home!” commanded the fathomless voice.

  Jeremy felt his legs moving without his brain telling them to. But it was a good idea, wasn’t it? He was supposed to run. His clumsy steps lengthened into a loping run, and he felt his father’s presence beside him. But that was the only presence. Jeremy glanced over his shoulder in alarm.

  Behind them, armed with only a small knife, his uncle stayed to confront the bear.

  21

  Brennan’s apartment once more became a den for two.

  He didn’t think that leaving Greg alone last night would be a good thing, so the two of them had returned to his apartment after leaving the hospital. He let his nephew take the bed while he slept on the couch, but Greg’s soft sobs could be heard through the wall, and neither one of them got much rest until Greg finally cried himself to sleep. It was an exhausting thing, being miserable, and Brennan sympathized for the kid. He had made his peace with losing Maddy a long time ago; it was just hitting his nephew fresh that she was gone.

  Brennan made the executive decision to stay home that day. The two of them needed a personal day, and he cracked open two bottles of Coke just as Greg emerged from the bedroom. He didn’t say anything, and Brennan didn’t want to overstep his bounds. It had occurred to him sometime in the early morning that Greg would need someone to watch over him. He was eighteen, but his age mattered little with no job and no aspirations for college. He was an addict, and Brennan was the only family he had left.

  “Good morning,” Brennan said, offering a Coke.

  Greg turned it down. “It’s afternoon,” he replied. He sat on the couch, which protested with a whoosh of air as he sunk into the cushion. “And that stuff rots your teeth, you know.”

  Brennan grunted. “More for me. Do you want to watch something?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Greg said. He picked up the remote and turned the television on, but didn’t so much as glance at the screen. Brennan sighed and joined him on the couch, placing the second bottle of Coke on the end table.

  His nephew looked at the floor. There were a few shards of glass that Brennan had missed in his hasty clean-up last night. Greg raised an eyebrow. “Should I ask?”

  “Best if you don’t.”

  “That wasn’t really an open question,” he countered. “What happened?”

  Brennan chewed at the inside of his mouth. Greg was a good kid, and he was hurting for some kind of connection right now. Brennan had become accustomed to shutting away his thoughts and feelings, compartmentalizing everything, and he had never been the best at opening up to people. Now he had been asked to do it twice in less than twenty-four hours.

  He had never been forthright about his past as a Sleeper; in fact, every Sleeper to date had served until death, and Brennan’s situation was unique as far as he knew. Nobody had bothered with the details of retirement. Which, he supposed, meant that there were no restrictions against revealing his past. Still, Sleepers were feared by many, regardless of their status as fact or fiction. He wasn’t sure how his nephew would react to the news.

  “It’s complicated,” he hedged.

  Greg looked at him and sighed. “Look, if you just went on a bender and lost it, I’m old enough to understand.”

  “What? No! It wasn’t anything like that.” Brennan wished it were so simple. He took a deep breath and turned to face his nephew. “Okay, what I’m about to tell you, you can’t repeat to anyone. Understand? Absolutely nobody.”

  “Got it.”

  “I’m serious,” he said gravely. “If anybody were to find out that—”

  Greg met his eyes. “Uncle Arty, you can trust me.”

  True.

  Brennan didn’t need any further proof. He pursed his lips, choosing his words carefully. “A couple of nights ago, a Sleeper visited me in one of my dreams.” Greg arched a skeptical eyebrow, but said nothing. “I was dreaming about your Aunt Mara, she was—I was visiting her by her bedside. It wasn’t a dream, really, so much as a memory. Every detail was exactly the same, right down to the doctor pronouncing her dead while her heart was still beating. I was just about to try the impossible when the Sleeper appeared. I didn’t even notice him until it was almost too late.”

  “But it was just a dream, right? Sleepers aren’t real, and even if—”

  “No,” Brennan said, cutting him off. “It’s never just a dream, not when Sleepers are involved. They are very real, Greg.” He hesitated, but remembered what his power had told him. Greg could be trusted. “I used to be one of them.”

  “You were…no. You’re a cop, a detective.”

  “I am now,” he said simply.

  Greg gaped at him for a long moment, then reached over Brennan and grabbed the second Coke from the end table. He took a long drink from it, several swallows, before sitting back and staring into empty space. “Okay,” he said finally.

  “Okay?” Brennan looked at his nephew incredulously. “That’s all?”

  He shrugged. “It’s in the past, right? Sleepers are the boogeymen and whatever, but that’s not you.” He looked at Brennan with mature eyes. “Now you’re a cop.”

  They exchanged that stare for a moment, and it was Brennan who looked away first. His eyes burned with unfamiliar tears—not of sorrow, but of pride. His nephew was growing up.

  “Thank you for understanding,” Brennan said, his voice heavy. He took a long sip that finished his Coke, and he reached forward to put the empty bottle on the glass tabletop—the one that had been shattered. He checked the motion and instead replaced it on the end table.

  “So you still didn’t explain that,” Greg said with a smile, gesturing to the empty space before them. A sliver of glass gleamed against the wood in the afternoon sun, and Brennan picked it up tenderly.

  “I woke up,” he said, grinning like a wolf. “I’ve always known the day would come when a Sleeper would appear in my dreams. I slept with a thumb tack curled in my palm, in case I ever needed to wake up in a pinch.” He walked over to the kitchen and tossed the glass shard into the trash.

  “Slept. Past tense,” Greg noted. “You aren’t still using it?”

  Brennan shrugged. “The last time we met, it didn’t end well for him. I figure I have some breathing room for the time being. As long as I keep quiet, they have no reason to come for me.”

  “Keep quiet about what?”

  He looked at his nephew, and his tone was very solemn. “Sleepers are the boogeymen.” His pocket vibrated then, and he took out his phone. “Sam,” he said. “What’ve you got for me?”

  “Arty, I have good news and bad news. Which would you like first?”

  “Surprise me.”

  “Bad news is that there were a surprising number of places that either produce or store Chamalla, and it was a pain and a half tracking them all down. I’m charging double for all of this legwork.”

  Brennan remembered that Sam was still technically on retainer for Bishop. “Done,” he promised. “What’s the good news?”

  “Being the trusty and thorough friend that I am, I found all of these places for you and managed to narrow down the list of likely suspects to two locations.”

  “Excellent!” Brennan said. “Sam, I could kiss you.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “All right, what are the addresses?” He wrote them down as Sam read them to him.

  “But there’s a catch,” Sam added. “These spots are across town from each other, too far apart for you to visit one and then the other.”

  Brennan followed his logic. “Leviathan could be watching both of them, and have enough of a warning to move shop if we don’t hit the right one first.”

  “Exactly. So what are you
going to do?”

  “I’ll call Bishop and organize strike teams on both locations. We’ll converge simultaneously and mop them up before they have a chance to react.”

  “Sounds good, partner. Need anything else on my end?”

  “No need,” Brennan said. “Thanks for your help. I’ll see to it that you get your money when this is all over.” I don’t know how the hell I’m going to break that news to Bishop, he thought, ending the call. He motioned for Greg to join him. “I’m taking you back to your place,” he said. “Something came up at work, and I have to go.”

  “Can’t I stay here?”

  He hesitated. He rarely had guests over, except for Bishop yesterday and Sam’s occasional visits. With Maddy’s passing, would Greg have to live with him now? It was probably safer for him—mentally, at least—not to go back to his place just yet.

  “I, um…sure,” Brennan finally said. “Teeth-rotting fluid is in the fridge, and you know how to work the television. Just watch your feet. There could still be glass lying about.”

  Greg grinned. “I’ll be careful, I promise.”

  Brennan smiled back, but then he noticed something. His nephew’s eyes were sunken, and the skin around them was sallow. The rest of his face had a grayish tinge to it. He had chalked it up to poor sleep, or maybe he had just been too tired himself to recognize the symptoms, but now he saw that Greg was still suffering from Chamalla withdrawal.

  He forced cheer into his smile and said his farewell, then descended the stairs to the street while dialing Bishop’s number. She answered on the second ring.

  “Brennan, how is Maddy?” He broke the news to her. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I know what it’s like to lose somebody you love.”

  “It’s never easy,” he said. His voice was suddenly hoarse, and he forced the sudden surge of emotion away. It was time to work. “That isn’t why I called, though.”

  “Oh? Did Sam find something?”

  Brennan ignored the tone she used when saying Sam’s name and told her what he had found out. “You and I will be leading the strike teams,” he said. “I’m heading into the station now to round up everyone I can. There’s no time for you to come here, so I’ll send the team to rendezvous with you uptown.”

  “Understood,” she said. Her voice turned mournful for a moment. “And Arthur? If you need someone to talk to—about Maddy, or anything—I’m here to listen.”

  His heart thudded heavily in his chest. “Thanks,” he said, and then he hung up.

  It took less than an hour to organize the uniforms they needed and divide them into two strike teams. One was sent uptown to assist Bishop while the other remained with Brennan to move in on a warehouse on the eastern fringe of the city. They took the shuttle and arrived just as the sun was starting to touch the skyline to the west. It was a large industrial park, full of different buildings ranging from old, square cinderblock monstrosities to newer, prefabricated modular units. An abandoned smelting workshop sat beside a dilapidated lumber mill, the kind that had cut and stored thousands of logs per day over a century ago. They were now silent relics in an industrial graveyard.

  Brennan and his men took up positions outside of a long warehouse made of steel and stone. They all wore bulletproof vests and carried semiautomatic rifles slung over their shoulders. Despite all of the added weight, they moved like ghosts alongside the building. Brennan wore a simple band of black glass on his wrist. He tapped it twice, and an acknowledgement light winked twice in response. He just hoped that nothing gave away their position until he received the signal. A quiet breeze drifted through the air, stirring up dust around their feet and causing rusted metal to creak somewhere in the park.

  This was the hardest part of any mission—the waiting. Being on guard and prepared for anything was fine for a few minutes at most, after which point the tedium could set in with little effort. Snipers were trained to maintain alertness for hours or days at a time, and Sleepers were similarly conditioned, but it was not something typical of uniformed police.

  Lights flashed on his wrist, a single dot of light in a rapid three-burst pulse. That was the signal that Bishop was ready at her position uptown. Brennan sent a confirmation back and silently signaled his squad into action.

  They entered in a burst of sound and light that brought the warehouse to life. Brennan slid open the sheet-metal door that separated his squad from the interior, and thick boots made heavy footfalls as they stormed the building. They flicked on the flashlights mounted to their rifles, and beams of light swept corners and catwalks as they entered. Empty wooden pallets lined the walls on either side, with only a few still bearing large, wooden crates. Steel beams crisscrossed overhead, the lights hanging from them having long since burned out. It was a large warehouse, but seemingly empty; their footsteps echoed off the cavernous walls.

  No cries of protest rang out; no gunfire, no fanfare. Two men entered the back office and yelled, “Clear!” Similar shouts were called from the upper walkways. Whatever this place had been, it wasn’t Leviathan’s source of Chamalla. Brennan swore and swept a hand across his sweat-beaded brow.

  “Sir,” one of the officers called. “You’ll want to take a look at this.”

  He moved to join the officer, who had his rifle trained on one of the crates. It was labeled ‘FRAGILE’ on the outside, and one of the sides had already been cracked open and left that way before they entered. There was a single square package laying inside, no thicker than a travel brochure. One solitary patch.

  “Discarded NicoClean, sir,” the officer said upon seeing what was inside. “Sorry, thought it was important.” He moved to replace the missing side of the box.

  “Hold on,” Brennan said, moving to pick up the patch. He looked it over on the outside and didn’t find any tear in the wrapping. It definitely wasn’t the refuse of some random person quitting smoking. Tentatively, he ripped a small tear in the top of the wrapper and gently wafted the scent toward his nose. The hairs on his neck stood on end. He felt the room spin slightly beneath his feet, and he quickly sealed up the patch again. It was definitely saturated with Chamalla—a fully converted patch.

  “They were here,” he growled, his anger rising. He felt his pulse quicken and he ran his fingers through his hair. The reason behind leaving a single patch to be found was only too clear. “Damn it, they were here and now they’re toying with us!”

  Even as his emotions raged, some compartment of his mind was still trudging along logically. They had stormed a warehouse, a storage facility of some kind. It wasn’t where Leviathan was receiving the Chamalla, but they had definitely used the location to store the finished product. It made natural sense to have appeared in McCarthy’s search, what with the area being an industrial center; the entire facility was basically one big refinery.

  But if that was the case, Brennan realized, then Bishop must have had the right location. Hope swelled in his chest as he sent a series of flashes through the wristband. Negative position, it told her. He felt a weight lift from his shoulders. It was disappointing that he hadn’t been the one to finish the case, but the point of their plan had been accomplished. With both locations stormed, Leviathan was finished. He put the patch in an evidence bag and stored it in his vest pocket.

  Brennan stretched his neck and heard several pops. Around him, the men were getting the message and generally putting themselves at ease. A few continued to check in and around the warehouse, but it was obvious that the place was deserted except for them. The mission was over and night was falling. They would soon be home with their families.

  He looked at his wristband again. Bishop was taking a long time to respond. He sent a prompt for acknowledgement and waited a minute with no reply. A cold feeling crept into the pit of his stomach. He pulled out his phone and dialed Bishop, subtlety be damned. It rang for half a minute and died without an answer.

  He dialed again. On the fourth ring, the call was picked up.

  “Bishop! Why didn’t you respond?�
�

  A male voice coughed. “Detective Brennan?”

  “Yes, who is this? Why do you have Bishop’s phone?”

  “Taken, sir,” the man said. He coughed again, and there was the sound of something wet landing on the floor. Christ, Brennan thought. He’s coughing up blood.

  “What happened, officer? Where is Detective Bishop?”

  The response was weaker now. “They were armed, sir. The men—they’re all dead. Jesus, they’re all dead.” His voice edged toward hysteria.

  Brennan fought to control his stomach. The entire uptown squad had been wiped out. Men and women of the badge, killed, just like that. And Bishop…

  “Taken. What do you mean, she was taken?” He heard more coughing, accompanied by more blood splattering on the floor. A loud clatter followed; Bishop’s phone had fallen to the ground. “Officer—” He realized he didn’t even know the man’s name. “Respond!”

  The men in Brennan’s squad watched him with wary gazes, questions plain on their faces. Some of them wore grim masks; they had already guessed what must have happened. Brennan held the phone to his ear long enough to hear the wounded officer’s final gasps.

  Silence.

  22

  The moon was partway through its ascent when Jeremy walked through the front door.

  In spite of his father being out of shape and Jeremy being in pain, their legs had kept moving into the night with unnatural determination. Jeremy felt the burst blisters on his feet with acute clarity, the abrasive pain announcing itself anew with each step. His father, in no better condition, managed to shamble on. Both of them were pushed well beyond the point where Jeremy would have normally called for a rest. In fact, he had tried to just sit down and stop several times, but his body had refused him. It moved of its own accord—or rather, of his uncle’s accord.