by Tom Larcombe
Greg spat the description out in a rush, as though trying to verbalize it while it was still fresh in his mind.
“Well, she told you about the one she remembered today, right? It kept going longer this time. Her monsters are just people, except she sees them with a fog occluding their features, like a ball of fog surrounding their head. I could tell that, but I could also see them as just people. I think she's got a touch of spirit magic also and that was how her magic told her that those people had their minds controlled. They definitely did, their movements weren't normal to their bodies, I could see the awkwardness of it. Plus, at the end, her parents were under control as well. Her father went for her grandmother and her mom was coming for Amber.”
Amber was silently crying in her chair. Her eyes were closed and tears were streaming down from beneath the closed lids. Charles looked at her, then at Greg, who shook his head.
“Not you, you're her teacher,” Greg said.
He walked over and crouched down next to the chair.
“Amber,” he said softly. “I'm right here.”
He put his arm out and gently touched her shoulder, but as soon as he did she grabbed and yanked him in close. He put his arms around her and held her as she shuddered and cried.
“My mom,” Amber spluttered, “she was... she was after me. But it... it wasn't her, was it?”
“No Amber, she wasn't after you. Someone else was though. All those people were under someone else's control. That person was the one that was after you, not your mom. She was forced.”
Amber's crying intensified, meanwhile Charles was trying to figure it out.
Why was someone after a six year old girl? What could she have possibly done that they were after her? And if it's the same guy, why leave her alive just because she wasn't growing up with her family any more? I don't understand.
Amber was slowly calming back down.
“That was... bad,” she said, slowly.
Greg nodded his head.
“I could feel your reactions to it also. Just remember, that wasn't them, that was just someone using their bodies, forcing them to do things.”
“That might be even worse,” Amber said. “Just in case you thought you were cheering me up.”
Charles was encouraged to hear her cynicism and attitude showing back up.
She's got spunk, that's for sure.
“I hope all these other damne... Ummm, cursed, that's it, cursed... memories aren't going to be like that,” she said.
“Were the others this intense?” Greg asked.
She shook her head.
“No, the others were more normal, everyday life types of things.”
“Then I don't think they'll be nearly as bad,” Greg replied.
“Well, let's get it over with,” she said, sitting up straight in her chair again.
Fifteen minutes later, Amber had gone through all her other new memories with Greg tagging along. None of the others had the same problem the first one had.
“So, did you find anything?” she asked.
“Well, I don't know if you heard me since you were kind of distracted, but they weren't monsters in that first one. I think your magic was showing you the fogged swirled heads to tell you that those were people under control. I could see their faces and the fog both,” Greg said.
“Okay, so no monsters, at least not in the traditional sense.”
Maybe one, Charles thought, but she wouldn't have seen that one because I'm sure he was controlling them from elsewhere.
“Other than that, the one with your dad at the desk? Did you know he had a revolver? It was peeking out of a desk drawer that was open a touch. There was a folder of papers in with it also,” Greg said.
“Dad had a gun? Nope, I didn't remember anything about that. But I don't think he was the type to show a six year old that there was a gun in the house.”
“The drawer had a lock on it, so he kept the gun locked up in there. But I'm more curious about the folder of papers that he felt the need to keep locked up,” Greg said.
Charles' interest was attracted by that.
“So am I,” he said. “We were going to head up to her apartment later on, why don't we do that now and see just what those papers were.”
He paused for a moment.
“Assuming they're still in there, of course.”
Amber stood up, obviously ready to do something physical instead of having her memories rooted through.
“What are we waiting for?” Greg asked, turning towards the door. “This is feeling more and more like the old times all the time.”
That's what I'm afraid of, Charles thought. We got pretty banged up when we used to go out and try to make things right. Now we've got Amber too and I'm pretty sure she wouldn't hesitate to rush headlong into a fight if she knew Greg and I were fighting too. It's a recipe for disaster.
He grabbed the key for 3-E and they headed upstairs.
* * *
They looked at the locked desk drawer.
“So, any idea where they might have the key?” Amber asked.
Greg laughed.
“No need, Charles?”
Charles sighed. Then he bent to the lock. He slid his awareness into the locking mechanism, looking at the tumblers. Gently, he used his Earth Magic to slide the tumblers into position, allowing the lock to open.
He stood and pulled on the drawer. It took more force than he thought it should have until he heard it scraping and realized that it was probably just the effects of time on the wood.
The drawer slid open to reveal a rectangular, wooden, case with its own lock built into it. Beneath the case lay a folder of yellowed papers.
Amber chuckled.
“My teacher Charles, the human lock-pick,” she said.
Charles frowned at her and turned to the drawer.
The case was heavy, heavy enough that Charles was sure he'd found Peter's revolver and ammunition. He set that on top of the desk, not worried about it for the moment, and pulled out the folder of papers.
Those went on top of the case and he flipped the folder open. The top sheet of the paper was a map of the town as it appeared forty years earlier. There was a series of concentric circles marked on a section of it, each circle labeled with its own date.
He peered at the dates noting that the one in the center circle was the earliest. Then there was about one date and circle per month after for fifteen months. Each circle also held several red Xs, a number beside each X.
He slid the map aside gently, worried about it due to its age, and glanced at the top sheet of paper. It had a large number one in the top left corner. The rest of the sheet contained a name, description, plus the last seen location and date for a wizard.
He looked back at the map. The number one was in the centermost circle on that.
“It looks like this is their data from the investigations. Last seen date? That suggests this has to do with the disappearing wizards.”
Greg leaned over.
“Looks like they were doing a pretty good job. They caught on to an epicenter. From the way the numbers are grouped it looks like whoever was making them disappear was trying to avoid that. At least assuming the numbers were assigned in the order the wizards disappeared.”
“A good enough job that they might have become a threat?” Amber asked. “Could this be why my family was attacked?”
“It could be part of it,” Greg said, “But remember, they were after you too and I'm sure you didn't have anything to do with this investigation at age six.”
“Leverage?” Amber said. “Could they have wanted me to have leverage over my parents, or my grandmother?”
“Grandmother maybe,” Charles said. “Your latest memory told us that whoever was doing this could control your parents, but not your grandmother.”
“At least we know why he was keeping this locked up now,” Greg said. “This isn't the type of thing you want lying around somewhere if you ever have company. Especially if you don't
have any specific suspects yet.”
“Did they have any suspects though?” Charles asked.
He started digging through the rest of the papers. Most of them were lists of the wizards had disappeared, but the last three sheets in the folder held notes.
“It looks like he was speculating some here. Peter thinks the person doing this would be well-off since there were lots of unsolved robberies that matched up with the dates wizards disappeared. That makes sense, if he could send a bunch of controlled people after Peter and Molly, then sending a single controlled wizard to steal something would be a piece of cake.”
“Um, not regular people Charles. A couple of the people that I saw in Amber's memory looked familiar. I'm pretty sure those were the wizards that had disappeared,” Greg said.
“So he was controlling multiple wizards at the same time? That's a little scarier. Even back then wizards were taught basic mind defenses.”
At Amber's querying look, he turned to her.
“We haven't gotten there yet. It's probably still a few months off.”
She nodded her understanding.
“Okay, so well off. Anything else?” Greg asked.
“Peter surmises that it's a male doing it, based on Molly's analysis of the targets, both the wizard targets and things that were being stolen.”
“Should we go with that? He might have had a biased opinion of her analysis, her being his wife and all.”
“Well, she was a counselor and a pretty good one from what Amber read in her mom's journal. If she was successful with helping people emotionally, then she probably had a pretty good read on people, no?”
“Okay, I'll go with that,” Greg said. “So, a rich male. At that time that would have cut it down to only a few hundred suspects in this city. But whatever happened, it all stopped, right?”
“Well, I know it wasn't happening when I took over, but that was about four months after the last date on this sheet. Whether that means he stopped, was stopped by someone else, or what, I have no idea.”
Amber had a thoughtful look on her face.
“Just a minute ago, you guys said something about regular people? What if he stopped taking wizards and started on them? The wizards would never know, right? They don't keep track of anything like that?”
“Why would he switch targets?” Greg asked.
“What if he only needed a certain number of wizards? Or could only control a certain number of wizards? I'm only asking because I know lots of people just disappear off the streets still. Most of the time the street people don't even report it to the cops.”
“I wonder if there's any way to check on that?” Charles asked.
“Not without canvassing the streets or having a contact on the police force,” Greg replied.
“So, that's probably out.”
“Well, there's always divination,” Greg said.
Charles laughed.
“Like that would help us very much. I remember the last time we tried to find out something with divination. We wasted all that time trying to figure it out, then caught the guy on a stakeout.”
Amber cleared her throat.
“Um, I have an idea, maybe?”
“Yes?” Greg said.
“Well, you said that those controlled guys in my memory, their heads were all foggy because of something I had? What are the chances that we could find them that way? I mean if I walk around looking, maybe I could see something like that?”
Charles stopped, stunned.
“I think that has potential, it might take a few days though and I'll have to have Greg help me. Greg, do you know how her Spirit Magic was doing that? I can teach her to actively use her magic, but you'll have to teach her how to filter like that.”
“I can think of a few ways she might have done it,” Greg said. “Kids doing stuff like that naturally? I might not figure out exactly how she did it, but I bet I can find a way to replicate it at least.”
“You know that you'll have to have at least one of us with you all the time when you're walking around like that, right?” Charles asked Amber.
She heaved a sigh.
“Yeah, I figured as much.”
“Other than that, it's a very good idea. If those wizards are still around here anywhere under control, or if he's kept it up all these years, but with non-wizards, we might be able to find him if he's still here.”
“He's probably not dead,” Greg said. “I'm pretty sure that would've released all the wizards he had control over and we've never seen a major influx of wizards like that would have caused. I'm pretty sure we would've heard about it if they'd shown up anywhere else in the country too. That's the type of thing that would have the wizard grapevine buzzing with gossip.”
“So we might even be able to rescue them?” Amber asked, hope gleaming on her face. “Maybe my parents are still alive!”
Charles stopped dead. He hadn't followed the logic through to that conclusion, but he also didn't want his student to get her hopes too high.
“Don't get your hopes up. It is a possibility, but I wouldn't count on it. A lot can happen in forty years.”
“But they might be,” Amber said. “I might actually have a family out there somewhere.”
Greg was behind Amber and he was shaking his head slowly at Charles.
I know Greg, I agree with you even, Charles thought. But how do I let her down easily?
“It's possible, but don't count on it, okay?” he said. “We'll work on what you need to be able to do this starting tomorrow morning.”
He turned his attention back to the papers and put them away carefully. Replacing the folder in the drawer, he focused on the box. The lock was a simple one that he had open in moments. When he lifted the lid his suspicions were confirmed. An old revolver, along with three boxes of ammunition, filled the case. It rested in what looked like a carved piece of wood.
I'm sure he did that himself with his Earth Magic, Charles thought. Never thought of carving form-fitted pieces of wood to store my delicate equipment, but it's something to remember.
The gun had been unloaded before it was put away, Charles checked. Then he closed the case and relocked it with a moment's concentration.
“So yeah, that's the revolver,” he said. “Nothing else in there though, just the gun and ammo.”
Amber looked at the case.
“Could I—”
Charles cut her off before she'd even finished her sentence.
“No, you can't have a gun. Unless you want to do some training. Do some sort of safety course for firearms and then you can have it. But that'll have to wait until you stop aging so quickly and we get you some identification. I'm sure they'd want ID for that.”
She sighed and shook her head.
“I don't see why not. You say I'm more than forty years old. I ought to be allowed to have my father's gun.”
“Temporally, you're over forty. But your body only just decided to mature, so I don't expect the rest of you to have caught up yet,” Charles said.
Greg grinned widely, safe behind Amber's back.
“Did you just call me immature?” she asked.
“No, not at all. I just said that the rest of you hasn't caught up to your maturing body.”
Amber scrunched her face up, trying to parse his sentence.
“I'm pretty sure you just called me immature.”
“Yes I'm sure you're sure, but you still don't get the gun until after you've learned more about firearms,” Charles finished.
He slid the box back in the drawer, then slid the drawer shut and locked that also.
* * *
* * *
Chapter 12
The next several days were filled with Amber's attempts to learn how to perform magic. She had a problem at first, one where she couldn't call up the memories and emotions to power it. She'd try to run a spell off of just the power she had in her own body and it would invariably run out before she'd finished what she was trying to do.
She asked for the loan of a crystal so she could do it, but Charles denied her request.
“You won't have a crystal on you all the time. You need to learn to do it this way first.”
His blithe reply irritated her and she was still irritated by it a few minutes later when he asked her to try again. Much to her surprise, the tiny trickle of energy that was generated by her resentment over him turning down her request was sufficient to allow her to finish the spell.
“What the he...ck?” she said. “You told me to make sure I didn't feel anything when I tried, but it didn't work until I tried while I was feeling resentment that I couldn't get rid of.”
“No, I told you to be careful of what you felt when you tried. I'd already explained that magic comes from the emotional parts of your life. Why would you think I was telling you not to feel any emotions when you tried?”
“Because...”
She trailed off as she thought about it.
Because I didn't think about it and automatically assumed I'd need to concentrate on what I was trying to do to the exclusion of all else.
Charles nodded and she growled at him.
“Okay,” he said, “now that you've managed something, take that anger you just showed me and do it again.”
This time she managed to loosen a second cup full of packed soil almost instantly. As she watched, it trembled and then its volume swelled as the air moved in between the tiny bits of soil she was encouraging to separate from one another.
“There, I've got that down. Now can Greg teach me what you two were talking about, how to see if someone is under control?”
“Not yet, there are sure to be distractions when you're walking around the city. Do you want to have to perform the initial portion of the magic over and over? That's what takes the most energy, just holding it after is almost effortless for something like that. If I can teach you to hold your concentration through distractions then it will go more quickly and take you less effort. Plus, I still have to teach you to guard your mind.”
She sighed.
Just let him teach you, she thought. He knows what he's talking about. You're just too eager.