“And who are you guys, exactly?” Balthazar asked.
“We are Magi,” Mede replied. “Guardians and Gatekeepers of True Magick, which is the elemental force and the source of everything. What do you make of that, eh, child?”
“Well, I for one think you all fancy yourselves a little too highly,” Ignatius chimed in.
“Honestly, Mede,” Angus said, fixing his one good eye on Ignatius. “Consider the gene puddle from which the whelp was spawned. It’s blazingly obvious he’s not Magi material.”
“We’re here . . . now,” Daphne said.
“Blast you, fine, I’ll try him, then!” Angus retorted. “But it’s a bloody fool’s errand.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Ignatius said to Balthazar. “Apprenticing is a chump’s gig. Being a dogsbody to a crotchety old geriatric. Probably have you emptying out his stinking bedpans.”
The outhouse door rattled again. “Please, Grandpa, please!” the little Scottish voice piped up again. “Ah’m gonna bust.”
“Stop yer bellyaching and go in the bushes like everyone else, yew unnatural child!” Angus bellowed at the door, then turned back to Balthazar. “Your uncle’s right. There’s no reason for yew to do this. But if yer gonna, the time is now. Time to crap or get off the pot.”
Balthazar felt a flush coming to his cheeks and a panicky flutter of stage fright in his belly. But also this feeling of potential. That he might be more than just some ordinary kid. A Guardian and Gatekeeper of True Magick. How proud would his family be? If only his thumb would stop throbbing . . .
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll . . . I’ll try.”
“Do or do not,” Mede said. “There is no try.”
“Ha! You stole that off Yoda!” Ignatius scoffed.
“Actually,” Mede retorted stiffly, “Yoda stole it off me.”
“Give me your hand, boy. Hmmmm,” Angus harrumphed, staring deep into the lines of Balthazar’s palm. “What to set for the boy’s challenge. Where is it, now . . . has to be in here somewhere. . . . Ah yes, there it is. Yer challenge is . . . ,” he said, fishing a silver coin out of the hairy pouch hanging off the side of his kilt, “ta make this disappear. Fer real.”
“Softball,” Ignatius whispered.
“Yeah,” Balthazar whispered back, “if I could do real magic.”
“What?” Ignatius exclaimed, clapping his hand over his eyes. “Don’t tell me you can’t . . . what an embarrassment!”
“No interfering,” Angus snapped.
Swallowing hard, Balthazar could feel prickly beads of flop-sweat forming on his forehead as he looked down at the silver disk in his palm. But he wasn’t giving up yet.
Gritting his teeth, he reached inside himself for that glinting feeling of potential, flashing deep down inside him like pieces of eight at the bottom of the ocean. Deep down—but there. And, holding onto that bright thought, he closed his sore, stiff, bandaged hand around the coin.
The cold ache surged up in his thumb, throbbing like a second heart. Fighting back the pain, he clenched harder. Then, for the first time ever in his entire life, he felt the substance of the coin in his clenched fist begin to soften and disperse, flickering in and out like a hazard light.
“He’s doing it!” Mede gasped. “He’s really doing it!”
“Of course he’s doing it,” Ignatius said. “He’s a Fabuloso, after all.”
“Steady on, boy,” Mede cried.
Suddenly a cold electric current stabbed from Balthazar’s thumb up his arm, shooting straight into his heart, making him fumble his hold on the coin. It slipped through his fingers—tumbling, tumbling, tumbling into nothingness.
“What happened?” Mede demanded.
“Another coin! Let him try again!” Ignatius cried.
Angus turned away, his face sour with disappointment. “Told you the kid was a bloody waste of time. . . .”
Black dots swam before Balthazar’s eyes as the voices darted in and out of his ears like fish.
Below him the coin continued to fall, fall, fall. Probably would keep falling like that forever, nothing there to stop it. And as he watched it, he felt his own footing starting to slip away.
“Look to the boy!” Mede shouted.
And just before he went the way of the coin, a thick gnarled hand caught him by the back of his shirt and hauled him back up.
“His hand,” Daphne breathed, holding him in her broad, trunk-like arms. “Look.”
They all crowded around as Daphne pulled the gauze off Balthazar’s thumb, revealing an ugly black stain of infection beneath the skin. Grunting disapprovingly, she pushed his sleeve farther up, revealing tendrils of feathery black infection running all the way up his arm.
“Well,” Ignatius said, glaring at them with hot, angry eyes, “you wanted proof. Are you satisfied?”
“What have you gotten yourself mixed up in, boy?” Angus demanded.
It was a good question. But before Balthazar could even attempt to answer it, the dots that had been peppering in around the edges of his vision filled in and everything went black.
26. The Burrower
It could have been minutes, hours or days later when Balthazar woke on a narrow cot, a huge pile of animal skins and blankets mounded over him. His body was stiff and achy—but the horrible cold throbbing was gone.
The glowing void had expanded and was now filled with dozens of doors, each corresponding to a very, very old, battle-scarred Magus. Balthazar had never seen so many oxygen tanks, walkers and neck cushions all in one place—or so many magic swords, enchanted suits of armor and blazing staffs. And there, blustering around in the middle of all the battle preparations, was Ignatius, talking urgently to each of the Magi by turn. “I told you so. I warned you! But did any of you listen?”
“When is somebody gonna turn that wretch into a toad,” Angus grumbled, feeding greasy black feathers into a little fire.
“He did . . . try to warn us,” Daphne breathed, stirring the foul-smelling cauldron that was bubbling away over the flames.
“Bah! Even a stopped watch is right twice a day.”
“How long have I been asleep?” Balthazar asked.
“Three . . . days. . . . ,” Daphne said.
“Three days?” Balthazar bolted up. “No! I can’t . . . I mean, I have to go. I’m . . .”
“Three days in here, cabbage-brains,” Angus said, putting a steadying arm on his shoulder. “Out there it will have been only a minute or two at most.”
“Here,” Daphne added, pressing a steaming hollowed-out gourd into his hand. “Drink.”
The warm, musky liquid was so incredibly foul, Balthazar instantly gagged it back out.
“Good boy,” Daphne said, catching the spew in a tin pan.
“What is that stuff?”
“Feral cat . . . urine,” Daphne replied.
“What? Yuck! Gross!”
“Very difficult . . . to collect . . . actually,” she sniffed.
“’Twas kitty piss saved yer life, boy, ya oughta be givin’ t’anks,” Angus scolded.
There was another rattle at the wooden outhouse door: “Please, Gramps, it’s number two,” the little voice bleated again from the other side. “An’ you know ah got a nasty rash last time ah tried ta use the leaves.”
“The more ya interrupt, the longa’ it’ll take,” Angus bawled at the door.
Swirling the pan around, Daphne peered closely at the spew, then tossed it into the fire. “All out.”
Looking at his arm, Balthazar saw the black infection was gone, the only trace now being these almost invisible white feathery streaks running beneath the surface of his skin, streaking up his arm and onto his chest. “What happened?”
Unscrewing a metal canister, Mede showed him a seething, icy lump of those creepy black pollywog things, like the ones Ignatius had squeezed out of Rover’s scratch, only way more of them, their teardrop bodies already beginning to dissolve into cold puffs of putrid air. “They feed off magic. Can’t sur
vive without it. We took these out of your hand and arm.”
“But . . . but if the Gloaming feeds off magic,” Balthazar said, “what is it doing in me? I don’t have any magic.”
“Everybody has a little magic in ’em,” Angus said. “But yours is obviously so minuscule, so inconsequential, that the Gloaming couldn’t find it.”
“Probably why you’re still alive,” Mede added.
Looking back into the metal jar, Balthazar’s eye caught a small, jagged, chalk-white shard in the middle of the black, writhing mass.
“It’s from that parakeet,” Balthazar said. “Its beak had a chip out of it! I saw it.”
“Burrower, actually,” Mede said. “One of the Gloaming Major Arcana. The Burrower has no physical form of its own, so it body-snatches. What you saw would have been the corpse of a parakeet with a Burrower inside. This little shard of it was all the way up your arm when we caught it. Heading for your heart. If it had got there . . .”
“It would have killed me?”
“If you were lucky. More likely you would have become one of the Empty Ones.”
The name made Balthazar’s arm throb. “Empty Ones?”
“Shadow-carriers,” Mede said grimly, claw hand tightening around the canister as he screwed the lid back on. “People consumed from the inside by the Gloaming. An insatiable rot that feeds and feeds until it has consumed them all—past, present and future.”
“Exactly the kind of trouble that gets stirred up when daft amateurs start messing about with t’ings they dunna understand,” Angus said disgustedly. “We should’ve put an end to those stage magicians’ show-offy antics centuries ago. Stage magic gave the Gloaming a back door ta sneak through.”
“And so it falls again to us to stop it,” Mede said heavily. “But to do that we must find its source.”
“How will you do that?” Balthazar asked.
“The Burrower will lead us to it,” Angus said confidently.
“Is it here?” Balthazar said, looking around nervously.
“Na, but we have these feathahs,” Angus said, gesturing to Mede, who was poking and peering at the burning feathers among the embers. “These ones we found growing in your arm are spawned from the originals so we can trace ’em back to the Burrower, and the Burrower will lead us to the nest.”
“Vegas!” Mede pronounced, leaping to his feet. “The signs point to Vegas!”
“To Vegas!” the cry went up.
“Vegas?” Ignatius protested. “What are you talking about? The Gloaming’s not in Vegas, it’s back in—arrrrrrrrgh!” he howled as his left foot landed in the boiling cauldron of kitty pee. “No, stop, wait!” Pot clattering on his foot, he charged after the disappearing Magi. “I’ll need twenty volunteers to stay back under my command! . . . Ten! . . . Five!” But his bellowing only made the Magi rush away faster, his cries drowned out by the rattling staffs, the clinking armor and the slamming of vanishing doors.
Sighing heavily, Angus laid his veiny old hand on Balthazar’s shoulder. “Ah’m sorry the whole apprentice thing didn’t work out,” he said. And, unhooking the rusty latch on the outhouse door, he vanished into a blaze of neon lights and slot machine jingles.
“You should be all better now,” Mede said, untying his tent flaps, “but if you start to feel poorly give us a call.” He pulled a ridiculously old-looking cell phone out of the folds of his tunic and handed it to Balthazar. “The number is programmed in.”
“And what about my family?”
“We’ll see what we can do,” Mede said sympathetically. “We’ve all had families of our own. But our power is not what it once was. We must focus on the forest, not the trees.” And then he, too, was gone, disappearing in a flutter of fabric and a clatter of roulette wheels.
And then only Daphne was left, already halfway to her door, a fistful of poker chips rattling in her huge, knotty fist.
“Wait!” Balthazar entreated.
“Shouldn’t . . . meddle,” she said, but her eyes lingered on his thermos.
Fumbling, Balthazar unscrewed the cap and poured her some cocoa, amazingly still warm after all this time. “Here, do you want some?”
“Not . . . supposed to have any. Stupid doctors. Crackers . . . and applesauce. Is that any way to live?” Accepting the cap from him, she drained it all in one gulp, smacking her lips in pleasure. Then, looking around furtively, she motioned him closer, then closer again until the wispy hairs above her upper lip tickled his ear. “You’re a . . . kind boy, Balthazar Fabuloso. Remember the road that is not a road . . .”
“The riddle,” Balthazar remembered. “From back at the police station.”
“Hope,” Daphne said, nodding.
“Wait!”
But she had already left, her door vanishing behind her with a loud slam and a jingle of poker chips.
“Unbelievable!” Ignatius said, looking around at the empty void incredulously. “Should have known those old farts would be of no use. No, if you want to do something right, you need to do it yourself. It’s time to get our family back!”
“Yes!” Balthazar exclaimed. “Let’s do it!”
“Not you,” Ignatius said. “You are going back to that pretty social worker of yours. She’s the professional babysitter, not me.”
“But I can help!” Balthazar protested.
“You almost died,” Ignatius said. “I can’t do this if I’m worrying about some non-magical squirt under my feet messing things up.”
“I’m not going anywhere!” Balthazar said furiously. “They’re my family, too!”
A loud knock interrupted.
“Balthazar?” Pagan said from the other side of the door. “Where are you?”
“He’s coming,” Ignatius called back.
“No, I’m not!”
“What are you two doing behind there? Where are you?”
“Take care of yourself,” Ignatius said, grabbing him up in a big bear hug. “Re-entry can be a little rough.”
“Balthazar!” Pagan demanded, pounding hard on the door. “What’s going on?”
“Look out!” Ignatius shouted. “Here he comes!”
“Let go!”
And with a giant heave, Ignatius sent Balthazar flying right into the ugly old door, the wood exploding around him in a cloud of shards and splinters.
Log # 377
All I can say is it’s lucky for Balthazar that I found him before his clueless social worker did. If she had heard him babbling on about Grubbits and feathers and who knows what else he would definitely be in the loony bin by now. Instead, thanks to me he is now resting comfortably with his dove in front of a roaring fire. Except for having lost his uncle (which I explicitly told him not to do) and having barfed all over the place when he first came through that weird door, he’s doing okay. Claudette, who is defrosting on the back of his chair, is also doing much better, along with the rest of the snakes, whom I’ve spread out all around the room.
We need to make a plan, but Little Miss Sunshine is ruining everything with her annoying over-caring. “Talk to me. Are you okay? Here, let me put this cushion behind your head. Is the fire warm enough? Where is that uncle of yours? Never mind. None of this is either of your faults. I should never have waited this long to check in on you. How is that bump doing?”
Yes, I happen to have a goose egg from where I got hit in the head by the doorknob of that stupid exploding door. I have told her six times already that I am fine. If Moms was here she never would have noticed. I miss her so much.
Faust’s fumets, she’s coming over again. So far I have been patient, but if she asks me one more time . . .
27. Runaways
Balthazar’s mind was racing, combining and reconfiguring the different puzzle pieces whirling around in his brain. The Gloaming, the Empty Ones, the old photographs, the Fantasticum . . . it felt like they should fit somehow. If he could only concentrate. Concentrate, he commanded himself. Willing himself to forget the defrosting snakes all around him. To not not
ice Ms. McGinty reaching out to touch the bruise on Pagan’s lip. To ignore Pagan’s lips curling back in a snarl and her mouth opening almost like she was about to—
“Don’t!” Balthazar shouted, jumping between them.
“Don’t?” Ms. McGinty blinked in confusion. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t . . . Don’t forget to make me some soup.”
“Soup?” Ms. McGinty repeated. “Soup! Yes, of course! What was I thinking? You must be starving! I’m going to make you some nice consommé and I’m going to sort this all out.”
“Make sure you put lots of love into it,” Pagan said, calling sweetly after Ms. McGinty as the social worker hurried off to the kitchen. “We can taste if you haven’t put enough time into it!”
With McGinty out of the way, Pagan leaped up, switched on the TV and turned the volume all the way up so they wouldn’t be overheard. “Okay,” she said, smile dropping. “Grubbits, Gloaming spawn, Magi? What in Hades is—Wh-Who’s that?”
Balthazar was looking at the old blotched Polaroid he had taken earlier from his dad’s desk. “My other uncle,” he said, shifting it this way and that as if somehow that might let him see around the dark stains to his uncle’s face. “Shot himself through the head doing the Bullet Catch.”
“I . . . I think I saw him. That night your family disappeared.”
Riffling through her sketchbook, she pulled out her water-stained sketch of the strange man she had seen under the stage, deep shading and cross-hatching creating a dark, shadowy hole in the middle of the empty face.
Balthazar put his Polaroid next to Pagan’s drawing.
“Magic isn’t supposed to be able to bring the dead back to life,” Pagan said.
“Who says he’s alive?”
The two fell silent, considering this unpleasant possibility.
“Ow.” Balthazar winced as Rover’s claws dug sharply into his shoulder and she let out a frightened warble. His dove was looking out the window at something on the telephone wire across the street. Squinting through Gaga’s second-best pair of opera glasses, Balthazar saw something that looked strangely like what you might see in the meat department at a grocery store. Like an imperfectly refrigerated plucked chicken, only smaller and with its head still on. The Burrower! Without its feathers.
Balthazar Fabuloso in the Lair of the Humbugs Page 13