Into the Fire

by Patrick Hester

  Mikey didn’t like being told to stay in the car. He frowned, so I stuck my tongue out at him, making him smile. He had a bad owie and metal legs that clanked and creaked when he walked, plus sticks under his arms he had to use to walk. Daddy said he was getting better, but it’d take a long time. He never smiled anymore, so when he smiled for me, it made me happy.

  “But Pop—”

  “No, buts, Michael. Stay in the car.”

  Mikey, ready to argue, did as told, disappearing back through the door and into the rain. I heard the click-clack of his sticks before the door shut.

  “Come on, honey,” Daddy said. “Father! Father Rosario!”

  The old, smelly priest appeared and rushed over to us. He always smelled funny, and I sneezed when he reached up and gave me a kiss on the cheek, the rough hair on his chin scratching against my skin.

  “What brings you out on such a terrible night, Michael?”

  “I need your help, Father. I didn’t know where else to go.”

  “Of course, my son, anything I can do for you. You know that.”

  “Thank you, Father. I don’t think you’ll like this favor. I need you to call Dominic Mayfair for me.”

  * * *

  I stood in the back of the church, watching my father holding me in his arms. Young me had her head on his shoulder, arms slack, eyes closed. She’d fallen asleep while the two men talked agitatedly. Just a moment before, I’d been her; now I was me again. I didn’t understand it. A buzzing in my ear bothered me, but I slapped it to silence.

  Turning, I asked my father, “What’s going on?”

  “I had to show you,” he said. He sat in the last pew, hands clasped before him. Smiling, he rose and came to stand beside me. He was dressed in his formal blues, his shield so polished it glowed bright above his heart, catching the light from the rows of red candles burning behind me. With hands covered in crisp white gloves, he handed me a bologna sandwich. “Right now, I’m telling Father Rosario I’m scared there might be something wrong with you. Being a good Catholic, my fear is that some demon using you.”

  “Why? Why would you think that?”

  “You nearly burned the house down, kid. Scared the living hell out of us. We didn’t know what else to do, so I brought you to Rosario. There were a lot of rumors about him, and I knew he could help me get in touch with Dominic Mayfair.”

  I bit into the sandwich. He’d smashed it flat like he always did. I don’t know why that made them taste better, but it did. “Dominic Mayfair?”

  “Jack’s old man. I never ran into Jack, but I knew Dom. That’s another story.”

  “Pop, I’m lost here.”

  “I know. Look, Rosario’s showing us into the side chapel. Then he goes off to call Mayfair. This is where it all begins. Or ends, I guess.”

  “Pop?”

  He smiled at me. “I saved a man’s life one night, long ago. A man who had been attacked by a creature out of my worst nightmare. Dominic Mayfair. Grateful but cautious, he made me promise not to ever tell anyone about it, and until this day, I never have.”

  “I used magic.”

  “Yes. I didn’t know that; all I knew was that you’d done something strange, and Dominic handled strange.”

  “Why Rosario?”

  “There were rumors he’d done a few exorcisms—strictly off the books, so to speak. At the time, the church frowned on anyone doing that sort of thing, so I wasn’t sure if the rumors were true or not, but I took a chance. I thought that even if he didn’t know Dominic, maybe he could help.”

  “With an exorcism?”

  Smiling, my dad took my hand in his, giving it a little squeeze. “I would do anything for my little girl. Ah, here comes Dominic.”

  Another man entered the church. He resembled Jack Mayfair—same hair, eyes, and nose—but he had a bit more meat on his bones. Broad shoulders filled out the dark trench coat he wore. Meaty hands reached out to accept Rosario’s hand and shake it. Barely taller than the short priest, Dominic Mayfair had an air of command about him. Rosario nodded and very nearly bowed to him before leading him to the side chapel door. Curiously, Rosario stayed outside, sadly shaking his head before walking up to the altar, making the sign of the cross, kneeling, and beginning to pray in silence.

  “You better get in there, kid. This is the part of the story you have to see for yourself.”

  “Okay,” I said, my sandwich done. Three steps down the aisle, I paused. Pop hadn’t walked with me. He sat in the pew again. “Pop? You coming with?”

  The smile bled away from his face. “I can’t. Not there. He won’t let me.”

  “He?” I asked.

  “It’s okay, kid. You have to do this yourself.”

  “I want you to come with me.”

  “I know. Listen, I will always be with you. Never doubt it.”

  Panic started to rise inside of me. I rushed back, and he rose, enveloping me in a tight hug.

  “Samantha, this isn’t goodbye.”

  “It feels like it is.”

  “I know.” He stroked my hair. “If it makes you feel better, I will see you again.”

  “You will?”

  “Yes.” He choked as the word came out, but I didn’t care.

  I would see my father again. He’d said it, and he would never lie to me.

  “For now, you have to get in that room.” He pulled away from the hug, then gave me a little push forward. “Go, Sam. Now. Time is running out.”

  I turned to run and found myself standing in the little side chapel.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  The buzzing grew louder in here. I had to slap at the air three or four times before it finally died.

  Pop stood by the small altar, arguing with Dominic Mayfair. I moved around and found my younger self curled up on a bench under what should have been the Virgin Mary, only she’d been replaced, again, by the woman in white. Young me slept, little eyes shut, chest moving slowly up and down, completely unaware of the two men arguing nearby.

  “… Pig-headed fool! She belongs in my world!”

  “I have seen what your world is like. I will be damned if any child of mine will be a part of that nightmare!”

  “What do you expect me to do, Michael? You have no idea what you are asking me—none!”

  “I am asking you to save my little girl the way I saved you—a life for a life.”

  “It’s more complicated! I don’t even know if I can do what you’re asking.”

  “Oh, come on! I’ve seen what you can do. Don’t stand there and tell me you can’t do this.”

  “I can’t do this, not this. It’s not that I don’t want to! I can’t. I don’t have the skill, the knowledge to do something like this. Don’t look at me like that! You don’t understand how these things work.”

  “Fine. If you can’t do it, find someone who can.”

  “This is insane. Just let me train her. It’s not a terrible life. I swear I’ll treat her like my own.”

  “No, no, no! I will not have her end up in some alley being fed upon by some, some—”

  “Vampire.”

  “—Vampire! Not my daughter. There has to be a way, someone who can do what you can’t.”

  “This is dangerous. There—”

  Suddenly, everything went white noise on me. I stuck my finger in my ear and twisted it around, but the sound wouldn’t come back on. Pop and Dominic started moving in fast-forward, like someone skipping the commercials on a DVR. They paced back and forth, only at super speed. Standing, sitting, pacing, standing, back and forth, debating, and I couldn’t hear a word of what was being said. Just as I was about to see what would happen if I grabbed one of them, they slowed to normal and the sound came back.

  “He’s here.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Can’t you feel the damn drop in temperature? It’s his signature for whatever reason. I told you summoning him was a bad idea.”

  “If it saves her, I’ll do anything.”
r />   “What an interesting thing to say,” said a third, new voice. Low, raspy, like someone with throat issues.

  I tried turning to see the newcomer but found my body refused to budge. Struggling against the unknown barrier holding me in place proved useless. Nothing I did mattered.

  “You are the father?” the voice asked, so familiar.

  It—I—the buzzing returned, and I had to slap it away.

  “I am. Michael Kane. My daughter is Samantha.”

  “Such a pretty child,” he rasped. “I’ve always been fond of red hair. You wish to hide her? From whom?”

  “Everyone in your world,” my dad replied. “I don’t want her to be a part of it—any of it. I want her to grow up normal—no magic, no monsters. A normal kid. Can you do it?”

  “Oh.” He chuckled. “There are all sorts of monsters in the world that have nothing to do with magic.”

  “Fine,” Pop said. “I’ll take those monsters over yours any day. I can protect her from those monsters. It’s your brand of monsters who scare the shit out of me. Can you do it? Hide her?”

  A pause. “Difficult.”

  “But not impossible?” my dad asked.

  “No. What has Dominic told you of magic?”

  “Nothing,” Dominic replied. “He’s scared out of his mind. I doubt he’s listening.”

  “I am listening,” Pop said. “I just don’t like what I’m hearing.”

  “Very well,” said the voice. “Allow me to instruct you. Magic has a price, a balance. I can place a spell, to use a term you can understand, on this child. Block her from accessing her powers.”

  “… over forty, charge to three hundred. Clear!”

  Where had that voice come from?

  “Do it, please,” Pop said.

  “You haven’t heard the price yet,” said the voice.

  “I will pay anything!” Pop shouted.

  “Michael, be careful what you say to this … creature,” Dominic warned.

  “Creature?” rasped the voice. “I am born of Kings, sheepherder. You are what you are because of the elf. Left alone, your ancestors would still be sodomizing sheep in Irish pastures.”

  “Do not push me,” Mayfair warned.

  “Or what, Steward?” the creature, because it fit him to be called such, asked. “You gave up what power you had long ago. All of you did. You are impotent, yet call yourself Wizard? You can no more harm me than an ant can harm the moon. Now be silent. Let your better speak unhindered by your stupidity.”

  The room fell silent.

  “Magic has a price, a balance that must be paid,” the creature repeated. “If I were to place such a spell upon your child, it would fade in time. A week at most.”

  “That’s not enough. I want her to have a normal life,” Pop pleaded.

  “Yes, so you have said,” the creature said. “The spell must be anchored to something—something that can sustain it over time.”

  “What kind of anchor?” Pop asked.

  “A Soul. The Soul is what allows us to access magic in the first place; it is the first building block for any Wizard. The Soul determines how strong we can be, the kind of Wizard we will be. Every time we use magic, our Soul feeds magic as wood feeds the fire. The more wood tossed into the fire, the brighter and hotter it will burn. Leave a fire to starve, though, and it will die out, just as the spell will fade without a Soul to anchor it.”

  Pop looked at Dominic, whose face could be cut from stone.

  “I don’t understand,” Pop said.

  “Your daughter is strong, perhaps the strongest Wizard I have come across in my very long life,” said the creature. “I could anchor the spell to her. She would live a normal life, free of magic.”

  “That’s what I want,” Pop said.

  “It would also be a short life. Perhaps thirty years, give or take,” the creature said.

  “What?” Pop staggered back. “Why?”

  “Burnout,” Mayfair said quietly. “The spell would be constantly pulling on her Spirit, her Soul, to sustain it. It would suck her dry. This would have a physical effect on her—on her health, her body. She would be wasting away from the inside like a cancer.”

  Cancer. The word echoed through my head.

  I gasped. No! Everything went blurry. Tears filled my eyes. I knew now what was about to happen, what my father had done. I railed against whatever kept me immobile, but I still couldn’t move. I wanted to stop this, stop it all, keep Pop from doing the unthinkable. Then he said it.

  “Use me.”

  No! Everything faded, and I stood in a hospital room. People rushing about a bed. My mother in the corner, wrapped in my brother’s arms. A flash, and the chapel came back.

  “Michael, you don’t know what you’re saying,” Mayfair said.

  “Yes I do. Use me. I’m your anchor.”

  “It won’t last forever,” rasped the creature. “In time, it will kill you. Then she’ll come into her power.”

  “But she’ll have a normal life until then?” Pop asked.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s all that matters. A normal life. I’ll tell her the rest when she’s older. I’ll prepare her for the day when this world comes calling again, and she’ll make the decision to do what she wants.”

  “How?” Mayfair asked. “How will you prepare her? I’m telling you, this is madness!”

  “It’s what I want, what I can give her. You owe me, you son of a bitch! You will let this happen. Do it.”

  “You’re certain?” asked the voice.

  “Yes.”

  Before I could blink, everything went white. Then the heat rose—

  * * *

  The world is full of magic. I could see it now—how it lives, how it breathes, how has its own power, dark as the deepest cavern, bright as the sun. The earth pulses, waves ebbing upon a massive spider web touching all points, all lines, all lives. It extended out further than I could see, but I could feel it. A world full of magic, a universe full of power.

  I could feel Jack Mayfair near me, too—his strength, his power. Deep, that well. More so than he knows. Dark, rich colors swirl through him, around him. Banba is his home, a place of power all on its own, brightly glowing off on the horizon. It grounds him, sustains him. Names are important; I know that now. Banba’s stretches back through time, but it is only the tip of a vast, deep mountain culminating in Jack Mayfair.

  He had a stone quality to my eyes now, an extension of Banba and its power. The colors swirling around him and through him held such intricate patterns, like a kaleidoscope. It surged the Fire inside of me, fueling it, urging it to release.

  Number Two cowered below me, his brethren whimpering in their animal forms.

  With a thought, I unleashed Fire.

  Hungry, it swallowed them whole, devouring them in a single bite before returning to me, purring like a kitten, eager for more.

  I would not disappoint it.

  “Sam!”

  Mayfair’s voice. Small, insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Had I not just considered him important? Why, now, did I think him nothing?

  The Fire purred in my ear, warming me, drowning out all other sounds. It was hungry. Feed me, it whispered.

  “My father is dead.” I heard my own voice, heard the pain I didn’t know I felt. Were there tears? The Fire did not say so. I figured it out. I knew what he’d done, what he couldn’t tell me. My father. He would do anything for his children, anything to keep them safe. He tried to tell me. Tried to make me understand. To protect and serve was more than just words to him. He took them to heart, to his core. No regrets. No second-guessing. How would I explain this to my brothers? How would I tell them that I am the reason our father died? How would I face my mother?

  In the end, everything really was my fault. I’d killed him because he never had another choice. He had to protect me, his daughter, no matter the cost.

  Mayfair shouted at me.

  Fire drowned him out. Running, it purred. E
scaping. Release me!

  “Yes,” I commanded. “Destroy them.”

  Fire lashed out in a dozen directions, fast as lightning. Werewolves screamed in pain, devoured whole. Vampires screeched as they were consumed. Fire trumpeted in glee and delight. It apologized as it burned bushes, trees, and grass along its path.

  These things could not be avoided, it whispered. Casualties of war.

  Something pushed in on me, a combination of Air, Fire, and Water. An attack.

  I pushed back. Hard.

  Somewhere, Jack Mayfair screamed.

  He lay on the ground below me, cradling his arm. Ronan stood beside him, carrying a broken sword. A wayward prince, son of a broken crown, now carrying a broken sword.

  The thought bounced around my head for a moment and faded.

  “He saved me, Jack!” I shouted to the heavens. “My father! Gave himself to protect me!”

  Too late, he realized what I meant. Grief shrouded his face and touched my heart.

  A part of me did mourn. The other ran with Fire, relishing the kill, the destruction of evil.

  Suddenly, cold assaulted me. I pulled my arms and legs in, still floating in the air. The cold was terrible, bitter, attacking from all sides. I screamed, and a wave of Fire and heat flared around me. For just a moment, I felt warm again.

  “Sam! You have to focus! Your power is running amok! You have to take control before it burns you out!”

  Untrue, whispered Fire. Let us cleanse all evil. Release us. None shall hide from us.

  Fire, so seductive, its argument persuasive. Why not remove all the evil in the world? Release Fire, let it flow, find all these things and destroy them?

  I closed my eyes, head tilted back. So much Fire. What had the raspy voice said?

  You can push magic out from you, or use what is already all around you.

  Deep within the Earth, Fire ebbed and flowed like water on the beach. Reaching out with my mind, I could feel it there, just on the edge of my perception. Raging and calm all at the same time. Quivering at the touch of my mind. How could I guide it up, through the cracks, to the surface? Release it from its millennia-long slumber?

  “Sam!”

  I opened my eyes. Jack Mayfair flew at me.