Conjuror

by John

  The past was reaching through to the present. Matt lurched from it. Then the palace crumbled and was lost once again. Gratefully, he let it happen.

  *

  Lying on his back, he looked up at the treetops, watching the flashes of sunlight slicing through their canopy. He exhaled slowly, letting the adrenalin filter from his system, trying not to see the boy and the butcher’s knife, knowing he would see them forever.

  He slowly sat up, closed his sketchpad and shoved it into his backpack.

  Em, I’m finished.

  Em?

  54.

  IN CHAINS

  Rémy hadn’t gone down as fast as Em. He had managed to get his harmonica to his lips, but the flies had engulfed him in a cyclone of sticky blackness, knocking the instrument from his hands and flattening him to the ground, pressing his face into the red clay.

  Mom… Tia Rosa…

  Then the swarming darkness had carried Rémy Dupree Rush to a very bad place.

  *

  Rémy was naked, his clothes and the golden tablet gone, his eyelids crusted over with flies he’d crushed before he’d gone down. He tried to lift his hands to wipe his face, but found he couldn’t move them thanks to the heavy iron chains cuffing his wrists. His knees were bent, and his ankles were cuffed like his wrists. He shifted his body, slipping against a cold, hard, tiled surface. He couldn’t swallow, let alone sing. The ball gag and tape covering his lips saw to that.

  Rolling to his left and then to his right, he tried to get a sense of how much mobility he had. A warm breeze from above brushed across his skin. It smelled of oranges. He could hear distant male voices arguing in Spanish. A small engine plane flew overhead. A dog barked. A car started up.

  Rémy’s eyes began to water as his anxiety rose. A sweat of fear coated his skin, making the tiled surface more slippery. The voices were coming closer. Two men were arguing. Rémy wished he’d paid more attention in Spanish class, but he had always been rehearsing a piece of music or a song in his head.

  The crust over his eyes crumbled as he teased them open. He was in a stone cellar, a wall of aged barrels on his left and rows and rows of bottles, covered in cobwebs and a layer of thick dust, on his right. A set of wide plank stairs led straight up to a wooden door. His only source of air or light was a small, barred window.

  Despite the chill and damp in the cellar, his skin was on fire and his limbs were cramping to the point of serious pain. When he tried to stretch his legs, his knees twisted and pain shot up into his lower back. He’d clearly been here for a while. He glanced over his shoulder and rocked in horror, tugging violently against his chains. A surgeon’s tray with a flat razor sat behind his head.

  From outside the barred window, the voices were coming closer. Rémy struggled against the manacles.

  You’re stronger than me, baby boy. You always have been…

  He squeezed back the tears. Looking through the window, he saw legs, then a hand reaching down between the bars. He used his tongue to push the ball forward against the back of his teeth, willing himself not to gag. He couldn’t make any sound from his throat.

  Outside, one of the men said something that sounded important. Rémy thought he heard the word sueño – sleep.

  Rémy moaned as a gas canister came flying through the space between the bars.

  As darkness descended, he hoped they were talking literally.

  55.

  GUILT TRIP

  Matt climbed slowly to his feet, thousands of floaters in a rainbow of colours exploding in his peripheral vision. His stomach rolled. His scalp tingled. He leaned against the wall, letting a wave of nausea crash over him. His nose and eyes had stopped bleeding. That was something.

  Em, can you hear me?

  Nothing.

  When he was steady enough on his feet, he grabbed his backpack and ran unsteadily through the collapsed gates of the palace and out into the scrub brush bordering the road, where he spotted an old yellow Ford pick-up truck abandoned in the ditch up ahead.

  He threw open the driver’s door, but it was empty.

  Then suddenly he felt Em’s presence. He darted to the back of the truck and stood up on the bumper. Em was tied up in the back.

  Matt? Oh, Matt. They took Rémy.

  Matt jumped into the truck’s bed, untied his twin and helped her sit up. She had a nasty road rash on her legs where she’d been dragged, and she was covered in a disgusting bluish-black substance with the distinct metallic odour of blood.

  ‘What happened here?’

  ‘They took him,’ said Em, throwing off the ropes once Matt had loosened them.

  ‘That bastard Don Grigori was waiting for us. It was a trap to take Rémy. He knew we were here and he overwhelmed us both. I didn’t have time to animate before they knocked me out, and Rémy didn’t stand a chance.’

  ‘How did they track us?’ Matt asked.

  ‘Someone must have told them we were coming here,’ Em said shakily. ‘I thought it might have been Caravaggio, but he’s drinking at the Scottish seaside. Isn’t he? He has no idea what we’re doing.’

  Matt rubbed his earlobe with one hand awkwardly. ‘Um, yeah, about that…’

  Em stared. ‘Matt! What did you do?’

  Matt had never felt more uncomfortable in his life.

  ‘I wanted more information on the Camarilla, and he was the only one who seems to know anything about them.’

  ‘When did you contact him?’

  ‘I may have made a quick fade back to Scotland when you and Rémy were sleeping yesterday.’

  ‘You talked to him?’ said Em. ‘You told him where we were going?’

  ‘It might have slipped out, yes.’ Matt flushed. To be honest, they hadn’t done much talking.

  Em slumped down on to the road. ‘I’ve no words.’

  Matt crouched in front of her, trying to ignore the wave of guilt rising in his gut.

  ‘Caravaggio’s a rogue and a narcissist, Em, and who knows what else, but he’s not evil. We’re dealing with evil here. If I can feel it, you can too.’

  Em glanced around the barren landscape. ‘That’s why there’s no wildlife.’ She brushed off her scraped legs. ‘We have to find Rémy. I think… I know they’re going to do something terrible to him.’

  Matt squeezed his sister’s hand. Blaming themselves wasn’t going to help find Rémy, and that was their first priority. He climbed into the driver’s side of the truck.

  ‘Get in,’ he said.

  Em jumped shotgun.

  ‘They could have taken him anywhere,’ she said as Matt got the truck started on his third attempt. ‘If they have an Animare helping them, they could be long gone.’

  ‘We’re going inside that taverna in Olivera and you’re going to inspirit the hell out of whoever is in there,’ said Matt. ‘Find out where he could be.’

  He scraped the gears as he spun the truck 180 degrees. They sped to the village, tense and silent.

  *

  The place was empty.

  ‘There’s no one here,’ said Em in despair before they had even stepped out of the truck. ‘There’s no one anywhere. It’s a bloody ghost town. Now what?’

  Matt let the engine idle while he pulled his sketchpad from his backpack.

  ‘Do you recognize anyone from these drawings? They might help us figure out where they’ve taken Rémy.’

  Em’s eyes lit up. ‘Mattie, it worked! I knew it would.’

  She set the pad on her lap and flipped to the first of Matt’s sketches: an image of the artist at the top of the steps in the rubble, his face looking out towards Matt.

  ‘Well?’ Matt asked hopefully.

  Em shook her head. ‘I don’t recognize him, but Vaughn might.’

  Matt turned to his third sketch, where he had captured the artist leaving the building carrying a box under his arm. In the top corner of the page, he had sketched a close-up section of the artist.

  ‘What do you think about this one?’ he said. ‘I have no memo
ry of drawing it, but I must have.’

  For the first time since she’d come to in the back of the truck, Em looked closely at her brother. His hair was unkempt on his shoulders. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot and his irises were full and black and laced with a web of gold, rather than his usual kaleidoscope of brilliant colours.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ Matt rubbed his eyes, then dropped his shades over them. ‘I don’t remember drawing so close up, that’s all. Check out the symbol on the side of the box.’

  Em looked at the drawing again. The box was made from unfinished wood and looked as if it had been constructed in a hurry. The sides were uneven in length and the nails holding it all together were misshapen, but the symbol on the seal was clear.

  ‘It’s the same as Rémy’s birthmark,’ she said in astonishment.

  ‘Whatever is in that box has something to do with Rémy’s powers as a Conjuror,’ said Matt. ‘And I’ll bet you a million quid that Don Grigori wants… needs it.’

  Em flipped back through the sketchpad, landing on a series of drawings that looked like early Kandinskys: swirls of dark limbs and bloody water. She flinched. The pain Matt had captured in his sketch was palpable. Em could feel it shooting into her fingers when she touched the drawing.

  ‘God, Matt. What did you see?’

  ‘Those red scarab tiles? They were from a big tiled bath, like a pool. There was a naked boy in the water, and a butcher with a knife—’

  Em turned white. ‘Stop,’ she said. She turned to the sketches of the tall man with the knives strapped to his chest. ‘Who was this?’

  ‘I think this might be the Moor that Rémy’s looking for. The one Rémy’s mum said would help him.’

  Exhausted, Em leaned back in the lumpy worn seat. ‘If Animare are protecting Don Grigori and the Grand Inquisitor, then this Moor probably has someone protecting him too. We need to find him.’

  ‘We need to contact Vaughn,’ Matt said.

  ‘With what?’ said Em. ‘We left our phones in the locker at Seville.’

  ‘Not all of them.’ Matt slipped one of the Orion flip-phones out of the front pocket of his jeans. He’d kept the flip-phone in his pocket because it had no GPS capabilities. ‘Shit, no bars. Why am I not surprised?’

  ‘Drive back up the hill towards Seville,’ said Em, grabbing the phone and typing out a series of text messages. ‘If we pass through an area with reception, texts will go through faster than phone calls.’

  She snapped a few quick pictures of the faces from Matt’s sketchpad, then glanced at her brother.

  ‘You realize if you’ve been carrying this phone since Seville, someone in Orion may have tracked us and betrayed us to the Camarilla.’

  Matt looked relieved. ‘So it may not have been Caravaggio at all?’

  ‘You’re not off the hook yet,’ said Em witheringly. ‘But it’s a possibility.’

  ‘Fuck! Someone stole your car,’ Matt observed as they pulled the truck away from the kerb, nodding at the space beside the tavern where the red convertible had been parked.

  ‘Yup,’ said Em, digging the sketch from her bag. ‘And if we’re lucky, whoever it was is trying to pass a monster lorry on the motorway.’ She tore up her drawing. ‘Right about now.’

  56.

  THE SECOND KINGDOM

  The old Ford made it to the top of the hill and about another five kilometres before it sputtered to a stop. Swearing, Matt put the truck in neutral and manoeuvred it off the narrow road and under a copse of trees. It was dark now, and the last vehicle they’d seen – a Fiat packed with camping gear and an elderly couple who waved and smiled as they passed – had been a while ago.

  Em yawned. ‘Are we there yet?’

  ‘Close,’ said Matt. ‘Maybe a few kilometres from the main road that’ll take us to Seville, but I think we’re going to need another vehicle. Gimme a sec. I’ll take a look at the engine, see if I can figure out the problem. Otherwise, I’ll animate something.’

  ‘OK,’ said Em sleepily. ‘Be careful out there.’

  Matt stared at his sister, at the way her eyelids were drooping.

  ‘You really pick your moments to nap, Em,’ he said. ‘In case you’ve forgotten, we’re trying to save Rémy’s life.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Em mumbled. ‘It’s just… I feel so calm and comfortable.’ She giggled faintly. ‘Even with the smell of petrol seeping in from the dashboard and the springs stabbing me through the seat.’

  Matt outlined a torch in his sketchpad, ignoring the pages of images from earlier in the day. He did his best to peer at the engine using the animation’s faint light. Behind him, the high brush whistled in the warm night breeze, carrying with it the smell of manure and the sound of something big rushing across the field towards them.

  Matt whirled round, and stared up into the dark face of a man seated on a huge black horse.

  ‘My deepest apologies for your sister’s forced siesta,’ said the man, jumping from the saddle-less horse with an ease that belied his size.

  ‘Since I could not be sure of your reaction to my sudden appearance, I decided encountering you one at a time might be the safest course of action. I am Don Alessandro de Mendoza,’ said the man with a bow. ‘But many know me as the Moor of Cadiz.’

  Matt didn’t reply right away. He just gawked. The Moor looked exactly as he had sketched him only hours earlier, climbing from the rubble of the Grand Inquisitor’s palace with the body of a small boy on his back. But instead of torn robes and breeches, he looked like he was heading to a rodeo or to perform for a country rock band, in black jeans, a black cowboy shirt with silver buttons and shiny black cowboy boots. He still had his knives, though.

  One in particular caught Matt’s eye, its black handle etched with the symbol Rémy bore on his neck, its sharp blade tucked into a leather sheath at the man’s hip. He didn’t look any older than when Matt witnessed his escape from the rubble, which meant, if Matt’s calculations were accurate, the man was at least five centuries old but didn’t look a day over thirty.

  ‘Matt Calder,’ said Matt after a moment, extending his hand. The Moor shook it warmly. ‘My sister is Em. We’ve been looking for you, sir.’

  ‘And I you,’ said the Moor. ‘I lost you in London. I had to follow you here by more traditional means. Airplane travel is a difficult experience for me. Even after all these years in the twenty-first century, I find it terrifying.’

  ‘You were in London?’ Matt asked. ‘Rémy was looking for you there.’

  ‘He found me,’ said the Moor. ‘In a way.’

  ‘But how did you find us?’ Matt wanted to know.

  The Moor studied Matt in the glimmer of the animated torch. With his pale skin and black clothing, the young man seemed half of the world and half not. The Moor gazed at Matt’s dark irises laced with threads of gold, but as he was a man who had lived during an age of miracles and magic, he didn’t comment.

  ‘You and your sister have an unusual combination of powers,’ he said.

  ‘You have no idea,’ said Matt.

  ‘You leave certain auras in your wake. Over the years, I’ve become quite sensitive to auras.’

  ‘You’re a Guardian,’ Matt said. ‘Aren’t you? Otherwise, Em wouldn’t be snoring inside the truck right now.’

  The Moor gently banged his hand against the door, startling Em awake. It took her a beat to take in the scene outside before she pushed open the cab door. The Moor helped her down then, before releasing her hand, he kissed it gently.

  ‘I hope this way of greeting is still acceptable,’ he said. ‘It’s a very long time since I’ve been in the company of such a powerful woman.’

  ‘That way of greeting should always be acceptable,’ Em said, staring up at the Moor’s eyes. ‘I recognize you from Matt’s drawings. I am so happy to meet you. Have you been following us?’

  ‘I have been watching over Rémy since he arrived in London, but you all left faster than I had anticipated,’ said
the Moor apologetically. ‘Without an Animare by my side, I cannot travel quite as quickly. But that is a story for another time.’

  From a distant bend on the mountain road, Matt spotted headlights coming towards them. The Moor led his horse behind the trees and tied him up before helping the twins push the truck out of sight. They climbed up into the flatbed and hid until the car had shot past. Then Em and Matt filled the Moor in on what had happened to Rémy, and what they had discovered from Matt’s flashback.

  ‘I should have come more quickly,’ the Moor said fretfully. ‘I’ve taken too many risks with that young man’s existence.’

  Heat lightning streaked across the sky above them.

  ‘Are you Rémy’s dad?’ Em asked. Matt scowled at her.

  Jesus, Em.

  I’m just asking. It’s possible, don’t you think?

  The Moor’s expression was sombre. ‘My children perished in another age,’ he said. ‘But it has been my sworn duty for centuries to protect those with the mark of the Conjuror, just as it has been the will of Don Grigori and the Grand Inquisitor to kill or enslave them and use their power for their own survival. I was protecting a Conjuror that day, the day you saw in your sketchpad, Matt.’

  ‘The little boy?’

  ‘I rescued him that day, but lost him to vile treachery,’ said the Moor. ‘He was a son to me, and yet someone I trusted betrayed us and he was enslaved and put on board a ship bound for Hispaniola, for the plantations. I never saw him again.’

  ‘That’s awful,’ said Em, with tears in her eyes.

  The Moor’s voice grew quieter. ‘It took me many years to recover from his loss. I rested among people who understood and protected me as I wondered how to make amends. I vowed then that while I had failed the boy, I would not fail his descendants. I searched for centuries until I found the Duprees. The mark was upon them. I fell to my knees and thanked my God for his mercy.’

  ‘Who did you find?’ asked Em. ‘Rémy’s mother?’

  ‘Rémy’s grandfather. My attentions, alas, were unwanted. He believed I was the Devil.’ The Moor looked wry. ‘I kept watch just the same. I learned to blend into the background. I guarded Rémy’s mother from the day that she was born. As the fates would have it, I was with her the day that the Camarilla recognized her at a concert in London, when she was still in her youth.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘But she gave me the slip. Love, I believe, was the cause.’