Hunters in the Night

by Ramsey Isler

  After some hours, all the creatures left and the cave was still again. I stayed there long after they vanished. It wasn’t because I was waiting for them to come back or anything. I was just awed. It had been a long time since I’d felt something new. It was comforting. It was magical.

  For the first time in years, I was amazed by the Rift. It wasn’t what I thought it was. Maybe it wasn’t even what any of the nightcrafters thought it was. I hadn’t been seeing the whole thing. I’d only been aware of the shadows of a vibrant world. The Rift had so much more to offer beyond what I’d been taught. My time in that cave gave me new perspective, and reawakened something in me.

  I loved the dark again.

  CHAPTER 11

  I spent another day in the cave. The creatures came back twice more, and each time was pretty much the same as before. But I didn’t get bored with them. I was totally captivated each time. The creatures never did anything spectacular, but just having them around was a wonderful, relaxing experience. It was almost as comforting as spending the night with Newton.

  The memory of Newton brought me crashing back to the reality of my present predicament. My time in the cave had been inspiring and educational, but not particularly useful for solving the matter at hand. Newton was back at the cabin, working on a solution for keeping Kellar and his cronies from having a dangerous power. He was doing real work. I was out here just satisfying my own curiosity. And, of course, I was running away from the emotions that had been slowly developing ever since I met Newton. My escape to the cave provided me the space I needed to come to terms with a relationship that died before it could be born. Now it was time to get back to work.

  So I jogged back to the cabin in the morning.

  The little lonely house with the hunter green siding was quiet and unlit when I arrived. I figured Newton would still be sequestered in the basement and poring over data. But as soon as I opened the cabin’s front door, he grabbed me by the arms. His eyes were wide open and his hair was wilder than usual.

  “I figured it out!” he said. “It makes sense now. You gotta come down here. Where have you been? God, you’re soaked. Do you always sweat this much? It doesn’t matter, come with me.” The words tumbled out of his mouth at machine gun pace. I barely had time to comprehend what he was saying before he grabbed me by the hand and dragged me downstairs.

  “I was totally stuck for a while,” Newton said quickly. “Everything seemed contradictory but then I understood what was going on because at first I thought the nightcrafters were phase shifting somehow just like what happens when you push objects into the Rift but that’s not it at all it’s something totally different which I guess makes sense because it would be harder to phase shift something that was alive and keep it alive but—”

  “Stop,” I said, placing a hand over his mouth. “Take a breath, think for a second, and just give me the quick and dirty version. Okay?”

  Newton nodded. I removed my hand.

  “When I first met you,” he said, “you showed me that spell that made my voltmeter disappear and reappear. But I also had you put my chocolate in the Rift, and it came back different. It tasted different and it looked different under the microscope. Then I remembered how you said that fake magicians came up with the rabbit out of the hat trick because nightcrafters couldn’t actually do that. That’s when I realized that the ordinary phase shifting spell must not work perfectly for organic matter. The spell ends up altering biological cells. Not much, but just enough to make it impossible to shift something that’s living and not kill it. Just a tiny change to the molecules in your brain or your nervous system would kill you quick. So I figured that the nightcrafters didn’t actually come up with a system to phase shift people over to the Rift like they do with inorganic objects. Instead, they’re making tiny rips in the membrane between the two dimensions. They’re temporary, of course. The fissures only last for a fraction of a second before the membrane of the Rift snaps back together, but it would be enough time to send a person through. That’s how it works. I think.”

  “You think?” I said.

  “Well the math works,” Newton said as he gestured to the walls. It was then that I realized the formerly plain white walls were now covered in frantic scribblings. It looked like Newton had been scratching out mathematical formulas like a mad scientist.

  “The math works,” Newton said again. “But I can’t be one hundred percent sure until we test it out by analyzing the actual magic.”

  “I’d love to help you,” I said. “But I don’t know the spell.”

  “But I do,” Newton said with a giggle. He jumped over to his computer and pulled up a media player app. He hit the play button and I heard words that made me shiver.

  “Night comes swiftly and quietly on padded feet. The boy knows nothing beyond fear. Red and green and orange flowing madly through the sky.”

  My jaw fell open. Then I asked him, “Is that the new phasing spell?”

  “Yup,” Newton said. “Kind of sounds like somebody reading a William S. Burroughs novel, right?”

  “It sounds pretty standard for our spells,” I said. “The words don’t always have literal meaning. They’re just there to put the mind in the right state for the task. How the hell did you get this?”

  “Blind luck,” Newton said. “One of the nightcrafters in Times Square was near a brand new ATM machine with an advanced security system. He was out of view of the camera, but the microphone picked up his voice. When we did a collection sweep of all the electronic surveillance equipment in the area, this got picked up. It didn’t raise any flags from the automated data scrubbing algorithms, but I decided it would be worth it to go through everything manually. Good thing I did.”

  “This is crazy,” I said. “This might be the first time anyone has ever recorded a nightcrafter spell.”

  “That’s great,” Newton said, “but not important at the moment. Can you use it? That’s what’s important.”

  “I think so.”

  “Good,” Newton said. “Go grab a shower and change clothes. We’ve got some experiments to run.”

  * * *

  I showered quickly. I was out of soap so I used some that Newton brought — an odd brand that smelled like lemons and dirt. By the time I realized the oddness I was already covered in a thick lather of the stuff. I read the label and rolled my eyes when I read, “All Natural”.

  I rinsed, thoroughly, and hopped out of the shower after just a few minutes. I usually prefer much longer showers but Newton’s energetic eagerness had me rushing and I didn’t even really know why. His enthusiasm is really infectious. If he could figure out a way to bottle it and sell it he’d be able to solve worldwide teenage apathy.

  I grabbed a towel and threw on some shorts and a t-shirt before heading down to the basement. Newton was furiously plugging wires into machines and turning knobs and dials. “So how does this all work?” I asked. “I hope you’ve figured out the mechanics of this phasing spell because I sure as hell don’t know what I’m doing.”

  “We’re reverse engineering here,” Newton said. “That’s a step-by-step process. For now, I don’t need to know all the exact ins and outs of how it works. I just need to know if you can do it.”

  “And I guess that’s where the spell comes in.”

  “Precisely,” Newton said. “I’m hypothesizing that all we need you to do is say the spell, and the rest will just kind of take care of itself. Then I’ll have the sensor data needed to figure out what’s going on behind the scenes.”

  “There’s no guarantee I’ll be able to get the spell to work,” I said. “I’m a rookie. They’re veterans.”

  “True,” Newton said. “But you’re the best we’ve got. You’re all we’ve got. And so far you haven’t told me anything about nightcrafting that makes me believe that you need more than just the spell once you’ve mastered the basics of how to access the Rift.”

  “I see a potential problem here,” I said. “What if an entirely different
spell is used to come back to this side of the Rift? We have no way of knowing for sure since there aren’t any microphones over there to record people.”

  “I thought of that,” Newton said. “And you’re right. There is potentially a problem if there are in fact two spells needed. But, based on the math, the same effect should be needed regardless of which side of the Rift the spell caster is on. So I think two spells existing is unlikely.”

  “Unlikely, huh?” I said.

  “Sorry,” Newton said. “That’s as confident as I can get. Worst case scenario: you get stuck over there for a bit. But if you cast the spell successfully I should be able to capture enough data to figure out what exactly is going on here. Then it’s just a matter of time before I can replicate it and bring you back . . . if it comes to that.”

  “I guess I’ll give it a shot then,” I said. “Where’s that damn spell?”

  Newton handed me a sheet of paper with the spell printed in big letters. I spoke the words once. Then again, and again. Each word was important. I tried to match the tone and pace I’d heard the other nightcrafter in the recording use. The rest of the world fell away. My focus was only on the words. I repeated them over and over until, finally, it happened.

  There was a shimmering in the air right in front of me. It was like the haze you see on the horizon on a scorching summer day. I saw it, but only for an instant. Then I felt the Rift envelop me in a cold embrace.

  At first it was just like being captured by Mater and her gang again. The darkness surrounding me was complete and unending, and a constant frigid breeze made me shiver. I reflexively reached out for magic and found it. It was a little different this time. Maybe it was because I was here on my own terms, instead of having been forced here by vengeful nightcrafters. Maybe it was due to my recent encounter in the cave where I learned to love the dark again. Whatever it was, I felt more at peace this time.

  The thought of the cave made me reflexively turn in the direction I thought it would be in. It was a purely subconscious act, and I wasn’t actually expecting to see anything. So imagine my surprise when, off in the distance, I saw swirling spots of fluorescent greens and oranges, and my tongue tasted a hint of citrus. It was the Rift-kind I’d encountered in the cave. They were miles away, but I could still detect them. I stood there for a long while, thinking about what this could mean. I had been thinking that I’d only had my weird sensory experience in the cave because the creatures were on our side of the Rift, but in their natural environment they were just the same. Of course the creatures weren’t really emitting light; there was no natural light in the Rift. But maybe the Rift-kind had some sort of senses of their own, and through the nightcraft I was starting to understand the world as they did.

  At some point I realized I’d been there far too long, and the cold of the Rift was making me shiver pretty badly. It was time to return to Newton. But now that I knew how to get here on my own, I had a feeling I’d be coming back to this side of the Rift more often.

  I spoke the same words that brought me here, and this time instead of seeing a hazy shimmer I saw a vertical streak of grayness. It was like darkness, but not as complete and unyielding as the rest of the world surrounding me. It lasted only a moment, and then I was back in the cabin, with Newton furiously typing on his laptop which now had a new odd gadget attached to it via several snaking wires. The little machine looked like a satellite dish and a portable radio had angry sex and made a baby.

  “How long was I over there?” I asked.

  “Five minutes,” Newton said. “I was starting to get a little worried when I realized how long it had been. But I had some work to distract me.”

  “I can see that,” I said. “So what do you know now that you didn’t know before?”

  “Well,” Newton said, “now I know for sure what happens when the nightcrafters disappear and reappear. The next step is to disrupt the forces at work so we can stop them.”

  “And how do you intend to do that?”

  “I think I already have,” he said. “While you were over there I analyzed the scans I just got when you succeeded with the spell. That was the last bit of data I needed to confirm the math. Now I can enter in the final settings that will put the finishing touches on this little baby.” He patted the machine connected to his laptop.

  “And what exactly is that?”

  “A prototype,” Newton said, tapping a button that caused the machine to emit a high-pitched whine. “Try to use the phasing spell now.”

  I spoke the spell, glad to have another reason to go back beyond the Rift again. But nothing happened.

  “Doesn’t work,” I said.

  Newton just gave me that goofy lopsided of grin of his. He didn’t say anything for a moment. He was letting the gravity of his accomplishment soak into my brain. I smiled and said, “You did it.”

  Newton nodded emphatically. “I’m quickly discovering that all this magic shit is just about resonant frequencies.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “Have you ever seen video of an opera singer breaking a wine glass just with their voice?”

  “Yes.”

  “The glass breaks because it has a natural resonance,” Newton said, “which is a frequency where the glass readily vibrates. Add enough sound volume to the equation and the glass will vibrate so hard it’ll break.”

  I nodded. “And the same thing is happening to this membrane between us and the Rift.”

  “You learn fast,” Newton said.

  “So,” I said as the wheels in my mind started turning, “the trick is to change the natural resonance of that membrane between the two worlds. And you can do that with this little gadget of yours?”

  “Yup. Well, just that one for now. We’ll need a bigger one.”

  “How much bigger?”

  Newton held his hands about three feet apart. “About that big. Significantly larger than the prototype to increase effective range, but even then it would only cover about a hundred miles in total diameter.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “It’s still enough to keep the nightcrafters from popping in and out of the Rift around New York City. It’s a start.”

  “For sure,” Newton said. “But there is one problem. We need to find a point where the Rift magic is very strong so the signal will spread as far as possible. Got any ideas?”

  I thought for a moment, and had a sudden realization. “Yes, actually. I know just the place.”

  CHAPTER 12

  “This is the creepiest place I’ve ever been in,” Newton said, “and that’s saying something considering I’ve been to Dominique’s house.”

  We were in the basement of the old elementary school where Kellar had brought me; the place where my career as a nightcrafter had come to a screeching halt. The basement was just as I remembered it. It had the same rubber cement smell, and the same loose sheets of paper shuffled under our feet. Newton had brought an electric lamp with him for added protection from the Rift-kind, and it illuminated the halls with bright light. There were parts of this building I hadn’t actually seen with my eyes before, so I understood Newton’s surprise and discomfort. Now that I could see it, I realized that this place was creepier than I remembered.

  Our only companion on this task was the machine Newton had built. He’d taken to calling it the Rift Inhibition Device, or RID. Newton and I carried the RID between us, which would have been somewhat difficult if I hadn’t cast a featherweight spell on it. It was three feet long, two feet wide, and weighed more than me. Using a magical tether, I dragged it far behind us so light from Newton’s lamp wouldn’t affect the spell.

  The RID was the product of non-stop work during the two weeks since we left Newfoundland. Newton improved upon his prototype and the RID had passed a litany of tests. While he built his masterpiece, my days and nights had been spent hopping into and out of the Rift. Each time, I carried a number of Newton’s gadgets with me so he could get more data. It was all in preparation for what we
were going to do tonight.

  I’d brought us here because Newton’s machine needed a place that would amplify its unique signals through the Rift, and this was the best place in New York that I knew of. The plan was simple: jump into the Rift with the machine, leave it there, jump back out. Then we’d wait for signs that the nightcrafters were pissed off, and we’d know it had all worked.

  “You’re sure you’ve got the spell perfected?” Newton asked me.

  “Yes,” I said. “What are you so worried about?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you get attacked by some creature over there, or you slip on some nachtjäger piss and crack your head on the ground and can’t remember the spell. I just want to be sure you can get back if something goes wrong.”

  I smiled. “Aww. You’re worried. That’s sweet.”

  “I’m doing my job. I’m keeping you alive.”

  “Uh huh.”

  Newton blushed a tiny bit. Then he turned his attention to the RID and started hitting buttons and flipping switches, making the device come alive. “Once this thing is activated, you won’t be able to use the spell that brings you back. So I put it on a timer. After you flip the last activation switch, you’ll have two minutes to get your ass back over here. After that two minutes, the RID can’t be turned off. You won’t be able to use the spell that brings you back here unless you destroy the device. That’s a last resort though. I didn’t have time to build a backup, so try not to break this one unless you absolutely have to.”

  “Got it,” I said. “Piece of cake. I’ll be back in a jiffy.” I grabbed the RID with both arms and cast the spell that would allow me to slip into the Rift. The magic ran its course as it always did, and I was quickly enveloped by the now familiar icy blackness. I carefully placed the RID on the ground and clicked the on switch. The device chimed softly, letting me know that it was functioning and the timer countdown had begun. That sound was music to my ears, and I was just about to pop back out of the Rift when I heard something else.