by Bill Hiatt
We might still have been safe if we hadn’t all frozen for a few seconds instead of making a run for the portal. Even Tal looked around desperately instead of heading toward safety, but he was more trying to figure out what the hell was going on than freezing.
When we finally got moving, we were too late. Another shadow blast hit the portal, and it dissolved in a shower of silver.
“Alex, Plan B!” yelled Tal. He tried shooting fire again, and again it was met with a shadow counterattack that quickly neutralized it. Khalid launched arrows into the darkness. They gave their usual satisfying explosion, but I could tell they weren’t hitting the creature Tal was having trouble with.
It was further away…and much, much bigger.
I might have been able to sense more, but at that moment Alex grabbed me and took off.
“What the hell?” I said, squirming in his grasp.
“Stop struggling!” demanded Alex. “You’ll just slow me down!”
“We’re abandoning my parents!” I protested.
“No, we’re not, but I have to concentrate…explain later.” Alex was even more muscular than I had thought. He squeezed me until I felt as if my ribs would crack. I took the hint and stopped moving.
It didn’t take me long to realize what the plan was. The big shadow, whatever it was, was following us! I guessed the idea was that Tal and Khalid could keep the others at bay, protecting my family and themselves.
Unfortunately the sandals of Hermes weren’t really designed to fly two people, and I realized then why Alex had been so upset with my flailing around. Even with me immobile, the big thing was gaining on us. I couldn’t feel any other shadows nearby, but that one seemed more than capable of finishing us.
“Family still safe,” Alex muttered.
I wanted to ask how he knew but realized he was trying to focus all his attention on getting us wherever we were going in one piece.
Having nothing else to do, I tried to see how much I could sense about our pursuer. It was not a human shadow, and it was bigger than both of us put together. Beyond that, it was hard to tell.
Then a vision came to my aid. I saw a weird creature with the front claws and legs of a lion, the hind legs and head of a goat, and the tail of a snake. The image looked familiar, but English was never my best subject, so it took me a couple of minutes to realize what I was seeing was a chimera. That monster’s shadow was what was chasing us!
I felt a momentary headache, as if my vision had gone into overdrive, and then I knew instinctively the serpent tail would have the same shadow poison that had almost killed me. However, that wasn’t our biggest problem.
The mythical monster could breathe fire. Its shadow could apparently breathe darkness, and in bursts strong enough to disrupt magic and overwhelm fire and other light sources.
The Populus Umbrae had brought out the big guns.
Even as my vision-haunted brain was putting two and two together, a blast of the beast’s breath narrowly missed us, and the ambient air temperature must have dropped twenty degrees. Great! One wrong move, and we’d be giant ice cubes.
Again I wished I could do something. Right now I was just dead weight, and if the creature caught up with Alex, it would be my fault.
Just in time, we reached what Alex’s objective must have been: a large, well-lit shopping-mall parking lot. The chimera shadow might be way more powerful than a human shadow, but apparently even it couldn’t fly into the light. It hunkered down right out of range of the parking-lot lighting, probably planning its next move.
“Everybody’s safe back at the restaurant,” Alex said, as soon as we landed.
“How do you know?” I looked warily at where I knew the shadow chimera was.
“I’m psychically linked to Tal,” Alex explained. “He sort of networks us so he can communicate super-fast with us during combat. He thought maybe that would freak you out, so he didn’t do it with you, but he’s asking if he can include you now.”
I nodded without hesitation, and I felt what must have been the psychic network reach out from Tal through Alex and engulf me. Suddenly I felt the presence, not only of Tal, but of Alex and Khalid in my head.
“You guys OK?” thought Tal.
“I’m fine, thanks to Alex,” I thought back.
“It looks as if the chimera doesn’t know what to do about the lights, just as I hoped. The creature never was that bright; I don’t imagine its shadow is any better. Most of the other shadows have vanished, though, so I’m guessing they’ll be along to start figuring ways to smash those lights any minute.”
“You…you expected this?” I asked, amazed.
“Not even remotely,” admitted Tal, “but when Alex and I noticed the parking lot at the restaurant start to go dark, we worked out plan B. I have a few spy tricks, like being able to see through birds, so finding a well-lit place for Alex to fly you to just in case wasn’t hard.”
I felt the night around us fill with shadows.
“Got an exit strategy? The rest of the shadow army is arriving,” I pointed out.
“I’m going to open a portal for you in a minute. It’ll be right in the middle of the lot.”
At that moment, a blast of shadow shot from the chimera shadow and nearly hit us before it dissipated.
“Hurry!” I thought. My only answer was a kind of mental static. Apparently the chimera’s blast took down the psychic network.
“That’s bad!” said Alex, eyes darting back and forth. “Tal was going to use his connection with us to open the portal. He’s never been here, so he can’t open one to here without that kind of link. He’ll have to fly here himself, and then open the portal. That’ll take a few minutes.”
The chimera shadow breathed on the light pole nearest to it. The shadowy breath quickly dissipated in the light, but the cold must have done something to the wiring, and that light winked out. The human shadows and the chimera one pressed closer and targeted the next-nearest light.
“A few minutes we may not have.” I shivered a little despite myself as the air around us got colder.
“We could fly somewhere else, but we already know the chimera is faster, and I don’t know what other nearby locations might work.”
Another breath, and another light went down. This time the chimera aimed higher, and the cold shattered the glass and bulb.
“If the chimera gets too close, it’ll just blast Tal’s portal again if he opens one,” Alex said, looking around for a way out.
The mall was basically an outdoor mall. We could have sought shelter inside one of the stores, but it would be only a matter of time before the chimera or one of the other shadows would figure out that breathing on the power lines might black out the whole place, and then we’d be done…maybe with a lot of innocent bystanders.
Somewhere in my head I felt Tal fighting chimera static in an effort to reestablish contact, but the creature must have sensed that. It fired at us each time, missing us but coming close enough to break the connection again.
I knew what I had to do.
“I’ll draw them off,” I said, my voice reflecting little of what I actually felt. “I can run fast, and we know for sure they’ll follow. Then Tal can get you out.”
Surprisingly, Alex laughed. “You just don’t get it, do you? You’re one of us now, at least if you want to be, and Tal would never leave you behind…I wouldn’t either.”
Another breath took out another light, and we shifted as far away from the shadows as we could get.
“I don’t think I would do that for a complete stranger,” I said. “Are you sure?”
“Dude, I’m a complete stranger to you, and you just basically offered to sacrifice yourself for me,” Alex pointed out.
Weird! I hadn’t thought about it at all until he pointed it out to me.
“If we could do something about the chimera shadow, we’d be able to hold out until Tal got here,” Alex said wistfully, his sentence punctuated by the shattering of another light. This process was
working far faster than having human shadows throw rocks at the lights.
“What does your…weapon do?” I asked. It was clearly a sword but had a curve like a sickle.
“Sorry, but no light effects. It does, though, cut anything. Apollo told me it was the same weapon Chronos used to overthrow Uranus, the same one Perseus used to cut off Medusa’s head.”
I didn’t understand the first reference but got the second one.
A light popped from the cold and flickered out. We shifted positions again as we talked. Pretty soon we would be out of shifting room.
“It cuts even the shadows, forces them back to their world,” Alex added. “Problem is, I can’t see them. I have no way to aim it, and the chimera would freeze me or bite me with its tail if I got close without knowing what I was doing.”
“I can see them,” I said, considering possible strategies in my head. “At least, I can see enough of an outline to strike.”
“But you can’t fly,” objected Alex.
“Ah, state-the-obvious night! I can run real fast, though, and the chimera’s on the ground right now.”
“If I let you do what I think you’re suggesting, and it doesn’t work, Tal will skin me alive and rub salt all over me,” said Alex. “You can see the creatures, but you aren’t used to fighting with weapons, and there are a lot of those assassins, I bet. Can you dodge all of the ones in between and get to the chimera before it ices you?”
I shook my head slowly. Alex was right; that plan sucked. However, there was one other possibility. I put both hands on his head.
“Trying a mind meld, are we?” he said humorlessly.
“Shut up!” I responded. He did, though we had to shuffle away from the growing darkness. We were down to very few lights in the parking lot now. I heard breaking glass and knew some shadows were on the other side, breaking the lights outside each store in the mall.
Yeah, it was borderline crazy to try to establish a mental link with Alex, but the idea had two things going for it. We were already part of a network, and, though it was disrupted, I still felt some connection. We were right next to each other, touching skin to skin, which ought to count for something in terms of overcoming the static—or so I hoped. I knew nothing about how magic worked except for the little I had learned today, but my instinctive responses had been good so far.
Also, I was part Encantado, and apparently part xana as well. I might not be a natural mind reader, but at least some of my ancestors’ powers were mental, and my visions and intuitions suggested I might have inherited enough to use a preexisting mental connection.
Anyway, crazy idea or not, we were not exactly blessed with a wealth of choices.
Tal and Khalid arrived at that point, but there wasn’t going to be a quick portal rescue. The chimera shadow turned on them, and it was all Tal could do to keep them from dying right then. Besides, the chimera breath they were dodging once again kept him from connecting with us. I hoped it wouldn’t keep me from connecting with Alex though.
Just as I was about to give up, I felt a little click in my head, and I sensed Alex’s presence, though it was weaker than before.
“Is the connection good enough for you to see through my eyes?” I asked.
“I’ve done that with Tal when we’re connected,” replied Alex. “Uh, yeah. The perspective shift is awkward, but I can make out where the chimera is, and its back is to me. I can probably hit it from the air. Worth a try anyway!”
Alex took off, flying much faster when not burdened with me. The other shadows might have blocked him, but they, like the chimera, were focused on Tal and must not have realized what Alex was doing until it was too late.
Somewhat awkwardly, Alex oriented himself over the chimera, and then dropped, slashing wildly. My position was so different from his that he still couldn’t aim well, but, through my eyes, he could see his approximate position in relation to the chimera, and his sword strokes had such strength that he was bound to hit something. He aimed well enough to slice off that snake tail.
The beast screamed, but it was strong enough to resist immediate banishment. However, as Alex descended, he kept hacking away with such ferocity that in no time his curved blade ripped into the creature’s hybrid body, tearing chunks out and flinging them all over the place. It could resist that treatment for only seconds.
Alex, surrounded by other shadows, might have died at that point, but with the chimera gone, Tal was able to light the area with fire. It wasn’t as effective as the sunlight from Gordy’s sword, but it was enough to send the shadows running again. Those that were inclined to stay as close as they could were dissuaded by a few shots from Khalid’s bow. As soon as I could see it was clear, I ran over to them at top speed.
Against all odds, we had won again. I wouldn’t have appreciated the magnitude of it, numb as I was, if Tal hadn’t been so excited by it.
“Great job, Alex,” he said, slapping him on the back.
“Couldn’t have done it without Lucas.” Alex pointed at me with his sword—really not the best habit, but, at this point, I didn’t mind.
“He revived the psychic connection between us enough to let me see through his eyes, or I could never have hit the chimera like that,” Alex explained.
Tal looked at me and whistled in appreciation. “So speed and precognition are not the only abilities you have? Wow, even a bigger freak than you thought.” I must have looked downcast, because Tal added, “Joking. Nobody’s a freak, remember?” Then he slapped me on the back.
“My family?” I asked, looking around.
“Already in Santa Brígida, where it’s high time we joined them,” Tal replied, starting to open a portal. It took him much longer than before, and, as I watched his face in its silver light, I realized how tired he really was. He was, in fact, barely standing.
None of us needed to be asked twice. We passed briefly to Alcina’s island, whose daylight blinded me, and, from there, to the comparative darkness of a street in what must have been Santa Brígida.
“We’ve lost them,” Tal announced, looking around. “Unless they overheard our conversation at some point, they don’t know where Lucas is right now.
“You know,” he continued, “I should have put your dad to sleep and done this in the first place. I underestimated how fast the Populus Umbrae would catch up with you.”
I noticed Viviane standing nearby. I greeted her, but Tal corrected me automatically. “Refer to her as Nurse Florence.”
“She looks younger than she is,” he explained. “She’s the school nurse, and—”
“What?” I asked quietly. “Every guy in school must end up in the nurse’s office!”
Tal chuckled. “Yeah, pretty much, and the job was really a cover for her to keep watch on me, before I had discovered the true extent of my…situation. She takes the role seriously though. Even I don’t get to call her Viviane in public. I suppose I could in private, but I’ve never really thought about it.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I’ll be more careful.”
“Nurse Florence, are the protections in place?” Tal asked.
“Everything Carla, Vanora, and I could put together,” she replied. “Lucas’s house has as much protection on it as yours, and the Populus Umbrae shouldn’t be able to come through anywhere within the town limits. At night, Lucas will have to stay in town, and preferably in the house for a few days, but considering how little time we had, I think we made pretty good arrangements.”
“What are we going to do with Lucas’s father when we wake him up?” asked Mom.
“The situation seems more difficult than when I put him to sleep in Madisonville,” said Bisavó, “but I will try to construct an appropriate dream.”
“I’ll take care of it, ma’am,” said Tal. “It’s easier to craft a false memory that will fool a person if you can read the person’s mind.”
“I have never known any being who could actually read minds,” said Bisavó, this time more in wonder than in skepticism.
“It’s rare, though I think more could learn it if they thought about it,” said Tal. “The limits of magic are a function of the worldview of the spell caster.” I must have looked confused, because he turned to me and said, “Think about it. How many myths or even fairy tales involve mind reading? Not a whole lot. Ancient casters, and even many modern ones, just never visualized it. Nor did I in my earlier lives, but I could train myself to do it.”
Tal got to work, so that by the time my dad awakened, he would remember the car breaking down in San Luis Obispo, Carrie Winn sending a limo to pick us up, and yet another person to handle the car. That story necessitated Tal retrieving our luggage from the car though. I thought he should just leave it alone, tired as he was, but Viviane—uh—Nurse Florence went with him to do the portals, and they returned with our stuff in about three minutes.
“Explaining why the car wasn’t here was easy, but I couldn’t think of a good excuse to explain the absence of your luggage,” he said. “No shadows to deal with either. So far, they only show up when you’re around.”
The implication of “so far” wasn’t lost on me. If they couldn’t get me, would the shadows start coming after my new friends…or my old ones, for that matter?
By the time Tal finished crafting the false memory and revived my dad, “Carrie Winn” was there to greet him, thank him profusely for coming, and give us all a tour of our house—which conveniently happened to be the one we were standing in front of. Tal and the others quickly made themselves scarce, but not before Tal drew me aside long enough to let me relink to him.
“I’m not going to rummage around in your mind,” Tal assured me. “The link gives you an ability to send me a distress call if you need to, and, similarly, I can send you a warning if one is needed.”
Our house was not the palace in our dream, but it was bigger than the place in Madisonville, and my dad was impressed with the design. I wasn’t as concerned about that as I was the fact that the place felt natural, as if I really belonged. The Madisonville house was always just a house. Somehow, I knew this one would be a home.