by Ramsey Isler
There was someone here.
They were practicing new magic. I could tell because I could hear the nightcrafter speaking the words of the spell. I couldn’t figure out exactly what the words were, or if it was even English. Through the Rift I could feel this nightcrafter’s presence create a huge disturbance here — an aura pulsing with power and sending cascading waves through the Rift. And I recognized that voice.
It was Kellar.
In the span of about two seconds I had several thoughts. First, I cursed my luck for coming here the same night Kellar decided to bone up on some new magic. Secondly, I wondered what my odds of surviving this would be. Finally, I wondered why my body was hurting so much all of a sudden.
The pain was so excruciating I didn’t have any more thoughts for a while after that. I swore I could see a bright light even though I was surrounded by pure darkness. It felt like every bone in my body was slowly exploding. Somehow, I remained conscious long enough to feel Kellar’s hands lifting me off the ground. I hadn’t even realized I’d fallen.
“What are you doing here, Kal?” Kellar growled.
“R-ruining . . . your day,” I said.
I only had one chance. I pushed away the pain, and acted on reflex. I had cast the Rift ripping spell so many times by now that it was like second nature. I grabbed Kellar just as I felt the Rift give way. The familiar gray slit in the air appeared, and then we were back in the school basement.
It took a moment for Kellar to realize what happened. I could see the shock on his face. But he caught on quick. Once he figured it out, his eyes hardened and he tightened his grip on my shirt. He was gripping so hard I could hear the fabric tear. “Who taught you that spell?”
I could feel Kellar drawing power from the Rift again. He was about to do something nasty, I was sure of it. I tried to cast my own spell to defend myself, but Kellar was blocking my magic. I was dead, I knew it. I saw a bright light again, and figured Kellar had killed me so fast I hadn’t even felt it. But then I heard Newton’s voice.
“Let him go or I shoot you in the knees.”
I knew that Newton was bluffing. He didn’t carry a gun. Kellar would figure that out very quickly, but Newton’s light was bright enough to keep even Kellar from casting magic. That meant he would run, and once he had fled far enough to reach the darkness again he’d rain fury on us. But that light was our saving grace. It provided just a couple seconds of distraction, and it was all I needed.
I felt Kellar use an arm to shield his eyes from the light, and I saw my opening. A quick knee to his groin worked a special kind of magic and turned him into a limp sack of potatoes in an instant. He fell to the floor in a motionless heap, clutching his nethers in a fruitless effort to make the pain go away.
“I’m sure he deserved that,” Newton said.
“Keep the light on him,” I said. Kellar was lying on the floor, his breath coming in ragged gasps. I made sure to stay out of his reach as I leaned down to look in his pained face.
“Regretting not voiding my memory now?” I said.
Kellar’s face had been a twisted mask of pain, but suddenly it shifted to genuine confusion. “I did void your memory.”
“What are you talking about? I still remember everything.”
“Not everything, apparently,” Kellar said. He sat up, the pain in his balls apparently fading. “You remember the training, yes. But you’ve forgotten some of the events outside of your lessons. That’s because the void spell didn’t work well on you, not even with me casting it.”
I wanted to believe he was lying. But Kellar never lied. He had no reason to. He would never say one of his spells didn’t work unless it was true.
“You were good, Kal,” Kellar continued. “Best student I’d ever had. You took to the magic like you’d been born doing it. It was . . . frightening. The others were worried that you would become too strong. It’s happened before you know — nightcrafters with enough power to break the world. After you had your little mental breakdown, Mater and a few other influential nightcrafters wanted you dead, just to be safe. But I had to at least try the voiding spell. As much as you disappointed me, you didn’t deserve to die for it.”
I could see it on his face — the sadness, the fear, the disappointment. All this time I’d thought he’d spared my memories for some special reason. Now he was telling me I was special in ways I’d never even dreamed of. But he had still tried to make me forget it all. He had tried to make me forget him.
“So,” I said, “you didn’t leave me with my memories on purpose?”
Kellar smiled, but there was no humor in that gesture. “No, quite the opposite actually. I tried damned hard to make you forget everything. For your own safety, and ours. I knew the spell didn’t work entirely. But I thought it would have altered enough of your memory to keep you from seeking us out.”
Kellar’s words were making sense. “When you came to see me in that cell beyond the Rift, you didn’t think I was up to anything. You thought I was just regaining my memories after all that time.”
“Nobody had heard from you in years,” Kellar said. “You were all but forgotten, which is exactly what I wanted. But then you got stupid. When Mater told me that she’d captured you for kidnapping Madison, I genuinely thought it was just some confused fragment of your memories making you lash out at the first nightcrafter you met. And I almost had Mater convinced of that too. I was going to catch up with you later and do a more thorough cleanse of your memories with some new magic I’ve been working on. That, ironically, was the spell I was practicing when you found me here. Ever since Times Square, I’ve been trying to polish the spell so I could void your memories for good and end all this. I was on your side, Kal.”
“Was?” I asked. “Can’t help but notice the past tense there.”
Kellar nodded. “Now you apparently know the resonance spell, and that makes you dangerous. We can’t risk having you around anymore. Voiding your memory isn’t going to cut it. Everything has changed, Kal. I can’t protect you anymore. I don’t want to.”
The dam broke. A wave of emotions crashed over me. My guts churned and my head swam. It was all so overwhelming that I took my eyes of Kellar just for a moment, but that was all he needed. I had just enough time to register his fist hurtling towards my chin. Then I saw the perforated, yellowed ceiling. Then I saw the floor.
* * *
It felt like I had been lying there for hours when my eyes opened again. The world was still blurry, but I could make out figures. Kellar and Newton were still here. I saw their figures silhouetted by the light of Newton’s lamp, which was now on the floor with me. They were locked in an embrace. Hugging? No, fighting. Kellar is bigger but Newton is scrappier. The scuffle continued for a handful of seconds before Kellar scored a vicious elbow strike to Newton’s temple. Newton went limp and crashed to the floor in a heap of limbs. Kellar left my field of vision for a moment. When I could see him again, he was holding something in his hand. A pipe.
“I hate doing it this way,” he said. “But with your talent for unexpected magic, this is the most certain method. I tried my best to help you. I’m truly sorry it didn’t work out.”
Even with my brain confused and befuddled, it only took me a second to realize he was going to kill me. I felt a strange sense of resignation in that moment. It was like some part of me had always believed it would come down to this. But another part still had some fight left. I thought about using a spell to defend myself, but Newton’s lamp was still going strong. I figured that Kellar had left it on purposely, just to make sure I didn’t have any other magic tricks up my sleeve. I closed my eyes, and waited for the end.
Then I heard a manic yell. My eyes flew open, and I saw Newton spring from the ground and grab Kellar. Newton had him by the throat for a second, but Kellar wrestled his hands away. The two of them fought frantically in a desperate hand-to-hand battle. With the lamp still on, Kellar couldn’t call up a spell to get rid of Newton. That meant it was a fair figh
t. Newton fought with a ferocity that I’d never seen out of him before. His punches were awkward, but he was throwing so many it didn’t matter. He was making headway for a while, but then he slipped on an old sheet of paper on the floor. Kellar saw his opportunity and toppled Newton with a tackle that would have made any pro football linebacker proud. Newton coughed and sputtered as he tried to get air back into his lungs. I was just clearing my head of the cobwebs and getting back to my feet when Kellar grabbed the pipe again.
“Bring . . . it,” Newton said, breathlessly.
Kellar just smiled and stepped forward. I steeled myself. But Kellar didn’t come for me. He moved sideways, and smashed Newton’s lamp with one well-aimed swing. The light flickered and died, and the dark came rushing back to fill the void. The greatest living magician in the world was back in his element.
“Oh, shit,” Newton said.
I could feel Kellar making huge waves in the Rift. Again, I acted on instinct and tried to cast a spell to bind him. It worked, for a brief a moment. Then my magical binds fell away like wet toilet paper. Kellar reached towards me, and I felt incredible force grabbing me by the neck and lifting me off my feet. I heard Newton choke and gurgle, and I knew the same was happening to him.
Kellar had always been stronger. He would always be stronger. There was no way I could beat him. So I had only one option.
“Madison,” I gasped.
Kellar paused. I felt the crushing, smothering force lessen. “What did you say?”
I could breathe and talk easier now, but still felt pain from my neck all the way down to my toes, which were still dangling inches from the floor. “Madison. Kill me and you’ll never see her again.”
“What makes you think I even care?” Kellar said.
“You kidnapped me to get her.”
“Mater and her cronies did that,” Kellar said. “Not me.”
Good point. I had to shift my approach. “But you are the one who failed to stop us from cutting off the ability for nightcrafters to go into the Rift.”
“What are you talking about?”
I laughed as much as I could with the invisible hand still gripping my throat. “Try it.”
Kellar’s expression didn’t change at all, but my Rift-sense told me that he was trying to work a different spell with his mind. When his eyes narrowed and he bared his teeth, I knew he had failed, and we had won.
I pressed my advantage. “What do you think will happen when your nightcrafter peers find out that you let us do that right under your nose?”
“I have no peers,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Mater might disagree,” I said. “She seems to have quite a bit of pull these days. I wonder how that happened. Who was it that invented that new spell anyway?” Kellar flinched, ever so slightly, and I knew I had my opening.
“You’ve messed up,” I said. “Can’t even stop one of your own students from ruining everyone’s Rift-hopping fun? You totally ruined your rep on this one. But, if you come out of this with Madison alive and well, at least it’s break even, right?” I waited for Kellar to respond, not wanting to overplay my hand. But he didn’t react. I had to press a little bit more.
“Kill us and you still lose,” I said. “Trade us for Madison and it’s a draw. Your choice.”
When Kellar finally spoke, his voice was deep and steady. “There’s no way I let you go, Kal. Not after what you’ve done. I let you go once. I am not one to repeat my mistakes.”
“Fine then,” I said. “Keep me. Lock me up in a black cell for the rest of my life. Torture me if you want. Hold me up as an example of what happens when you go against the nightcrafters. But let him go.” I pointed to Newton, who dangled in the air just a few yards from me.
“Deal,” Kellar said. Then my cell phone floated out of my pocket and into my hand. The crushing invisible force around my neck disappeared and my feet returned to the floor. “We make the trade in thirty minutes,” Kellar said. “Any longer than that, and the deal is off. Call it in.”
I dialed the fake information service number for the NATO operative emergency line; the same one that I’d used in Times Square. The operator with the cheerful voice came on again. All I said was, “Vermillion”. It’s my code word for a hostage situation. The operator went silent, and a few seconds later an unfamiliar male voice said, “Brief me.”
“Kellar wants Madison,” I said. “He has me and the other field operative. We have to make a trade.”
The man asked, “Location?”
I paused for a moment. I hadn’t thought things out that far. I didn’t even know if Dominique was even keeping Madison in the same location, and Kellar hadn’t given me any requirements on that. Then an idea popped into my head. It was a long shot, but it just might work.
“The trade has to be done immediately,” I said. “We only have half an hour. That means we have to do it in the park near the facility. Blackstone Park, westernmost lamppost. It’s a nice and open area. No tricks, or we’re dead.”
The man on the other end of the conversation was silent for long seconds. For a frightening moment I thought he was going to say something stupid and ruin the whole thing.
“Affirmative,” he said. “We meet in thirty minutes.” Then the line clicked off.
A sinister smirk appeared on Kellar’s face. “If you think a lamppost is going to stop my magic, you’re really grasping at straws.”
“The lamppost is just an easy landmark to find,” I said.
Then Kellar did that thing where it seems like he’s looking right through me and can see all my lies. But this time he just nodded. “Good. You’re not lying.”
And he was right. I wasn’t lying. The lamppost was just a landmark. I just hoped that it was still an accurate one.
* * *
Our current location wasn’t anywhere near Blackstone Park, and Kellar didn’t trust having us in a car. So we used nightcrafter means of transportation.
We flew.
Kellar had bound Newton and I with unyielding magic and brought us along with him as he rocketed into the night sky. We went from having our feet on the ground to dangling above low clouds in about two seconds. Newton and I exchanged awed looks. This was what it was like to travel with a real master of magic.
Once we were beyond the clouds, our vertical travel ended and more unseen forces pushed us forward horizontally. Kellar led the way, with Newton and I floating behind him and utterly helpless. I’d never seen a nightcrafter actually fly before. It made me wonder what else a master like Kellar could do, and whether my half-baked plan was going to work against him.
We made the trip from Long Island to Springfield Township in about twenty minutes and began our descent. As we slowly fell back towards the ground, the clouds tickled my skin like a fine mist. It was a nice, quiet night. I tried to enjoy it since it might be the last one I’d ever see.
“Where’s the meeting location?” Kellar said.
I looked down. We were still pretty high and I’d never seen the place from an overhead perspective before. But I was able to spot the colorful playground in an open plot of land and use that as a guide to find the lamppost. I tried to point to it but my arms were tightly constricted by invisible forces so I just nodded in the general direction and said, “Right there.”
I’d barely gotten the words out before we plummeted towards the ground. I looked over to Newton. His hair was all over the place and his eyes looked twice as big as normal, but he still appeared to have his wits about him. A cushion of air softened our landing and our feet hit soil. Some small part of me was sad the ride was over. That remorse was brief though. I had work to do.
“We’d better back up a bit,” I said. “The guys making the drop are the anxious type.”
Kellar laughed. “Why would I want to back away from them?”
“God dammit Kellar,” I said. “You scare people, okay? I don’t want some trigger-happy idiot turning this whole thing to shit. So let’s back up a bit, please.”
<
br /> Appealing to Kellar’s ego always worked, so I wasn’t surprised when he turned and took about a dozen steps away from the lamppost. He still had Newton and I firmly bound to him through the Rift, so with every step he took we were tugged along. Then we waited.
And waited.
Ten minutes passed. We’d hit our deadline and no one had showed up. There wasn’t a single car to be seen, and no one was in the park. Kellar checked my phone to see if I’d missed a call. There was nothing.
Kellar looked at me with fury in his eyes. “Where are they?”
“I actually have no idea,” I said. “They should be here. Maybe there was a problem.”
“Or maybe your friends are testing my resolve.”
I felt Kellar reach out into the Rift. His presence was a like a tsunami, crashing over me, almost overwhelming. I worried that he might be trying to cast a spell that would bring a very violent and painful end for Newton and I. But when that didn’t happen I realized he was doing something else. He was searching. He was looking for Madison, expanding his senses for miles, and for one crucial moment all of his attention was devoted on the task. I felt my magical restraints weaken. I used just a tiny bit of my own magic to push them away. I could move. I looked to Newton, and saw him still bound by Kellar’s spell. This was my only chance to save us.
So I ran up to Kellar and tackled him.
It took all the strength in my legs to lift him off his feet and my momentum did the rest, carrying him a good three yards before we landed in a heap of tangled limbs. But Kellar was quick to recover, and in a flash he wrestled me onto my back.
“You’re insane,” he said.
I smiled. “And you are out of bounds.”
I wished I had a camera with me so I could capture the look on his face. His expression was a mix of shock, anger, and even a little bit of fear as he realized I had carried him ten feet away from the edge of the Rift. He had no magic here.