by J. R. Rain
“Headmaster, but close.”
“Like Dumbledore,” I said.
He smiled at me. “Maybe. Little does J. K. Rowling know how just much she drew from the real world.”
“Is she a channel?”
“Yes, Sam. But more. A lot more.”
I nodded as if I knew what the hell he meant. I said, “Why aren’t you headmastering? Okay, that sounded bad. But you know what I meant. Why aren’t you at school?”
“Because I am here, Sam.”
“But you are not here all the time. Only a few hours of the day. And surely you aren’t here when there are no needy library patrons.”
“I suspect you know the answer, Sam.”
“The doors behind you.” I counted eight of them. “They are doorways to other places, aren’t they?”
“Portals, and yes.”
“You can pop in here whenever you need to, and then pop back out to the school, or somewhere else.”
He nodded once. “Some of the doors lead to more doors, Sam.”
“You be-bop around the country.”
He raised his eyes a little, waited.
“You be-bop to other worlds?” I asked.
“Some worlds, Sam. But there are still more to explore.”
“Am I really having this conversation?”
“You are, Sam.”
“What am I taking you away from, presently? I mean, prior to coming here, what were you doing?”
“I was inspecting the security of the school. Making my rounds, so to speak.”
“You really are Dumbledore,” I said. “But younger. And cuter.”
“Are you trying to make me blush, Sam?”
Except he hadn’t blushed, I noted. For all his cuteness and youth, the Alchemist was a bit of an enigma. He was, in essence, an immortal by choice. An immortal without the aid of a highly evolved dark master.
“I never said that, Sam,” he said. “You assumed this.”
I blinked. Outside, through the opaque glass window, I watched a student sashay by, her ponytail swinging back and forth, her backpack looking far lighter than any of mine ever had. I supposed many textbooks these days were available on Kindle.
I said, after processing his words, “You’ve been entrusted with a school to train Light Warriors. You watch over the world’s most dangerous books. You fight the good fight. There’s no way a highly evolved dark master is inside—” I stopped short.
He looked at me, waited again.
“It’s not a dark master.”
He raised his eyebrows.
I continued, “It’s an angel.”
“Very good, Sam. But I am not possessed. It is a mutual joining, if you will. He comes and goes as he sees fit, especially when I summon him.”
“Is the angel with you now?” I asked.
“Yes, Sam.”
“But why?”
“I find his presence... comforting.”
I got his meaning. “You mean, comforting when you are meeting me?”
Archibald Maximus opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. It was, I think, the first time he had ever been at a loss for words. He tried again. “Sam, you are not like the other vampires.”
“Because of your mom?”
“Yes, my mom, for one thing. And Elizabeth was not like other dark masters, either. She was particularly gifted in the dark arts, and particularly evil. Worse, she was manipulative and vengeful. Combine her temperament and abilities with your own inherent witchy talents—”
“I never developed my witchy talents—”
“Not in this life. But they are there, dormant.”
“But I thought I lost my ability to perform witchcraft once I became a vampire.”
“No, Sam. You only lost your place within the triad of your sisters.”
“I can still practice witchcraft?”
“Oh, yes. You will find it comes easy to you, much as it did with Allison. But there is something else.”
I waited, my mind reeling. Witchcraft? I’d never thought... I’d never dreamed...
“You met someone yesterday.”
I blinked, snapped out of it. “I did, kind of. We shared a pen, you could say.”
“You shared more than that.”
“Because God is everywhere.”
“Yes, Sam. But he shared something with you that is new information to me, too. I’m sorry if I am prying, but I can see it there, in your memory, plain as day.”
I knew of that which he spoke. I waited.
“I will admit,” he said, “that it never occurred to me that some of the vampires’ talents come from their contained souls expressing themselves.”
“Like a big-ass dragon just told me, you learn something new every day.”
He was nodding. “This is big, Sam.” The Librarian was pacing behind the help desk. I suppose I could also call him ‘Headmaster’ too. A man of many titles. “It means we have been giving the dark masters far too much credit. Note how they never corrected us. Not that they wanted us to believe in their power. But in fact, it was and is, your power all along.”
“But they are responsible for some things.”
“The dark things, Sam. The drinking of blood. The fear of light. The ugly nails.”
“Hey.”
“Sorry.”
I said, “Everyone makes fun of the nails until they need their Amazon packages opened.”
He laughed lightly. “I suspect—and I could be wrong—that some of their own particular talents leak through. My mother, for instance, was particularly gifted at mind reading, which is where my own skills come from.”
“And Tammy’s!”
“Yes, Sam. I suspect my mother’s talents in this area have spilled over to me, and now to your daughter.”
I shook my head. It made perfect sense now why only he and my daughter, as humans, could read my mind. The bitch was powerful.
“Very powerful, Sam.”
“Wait. Then why doesn’t her gift of mind reading spill over to me, too? Or more fully spill over to me? I mean, I’m good at it, but nothing like my daughter. Or you.”
He thought about that. “I don’t think she can control the spillover, Sam, or how one utilizes it. I suspect if you worked hard enough at telepathy, you would get better and better at it.”
“But not as good as you and my daughter.”
“Probably not, Sam. Some of us do seem to have a natural knack for it.”
“Lucky you.”
“Not necessarily. It’s not easy hearing everything single thought, from every single creature, alive and dead, within many square miles.”
My jaw dropped. “You’re kidding.”
“I wish I was.”
“And my daughter is the same?”
“From what I’m gathering, yes.”
“How do you keep from going insane?”
“I turn it off as often as possible.”
“But when it’s on, you can hear... everything?”
“Every thought—and sometimes I can even feel the corresponding emotion, too, if the emotion is strong enough.”
“Sweet mama.”
“You can say that again.”
But I didn’t say it again. I was thinking of my poor daughter and wondering like crazy how she keeps it all together.
The Alchemist, of course, was aware of my thoughts. “There is a chance, Sam, that she is even more powerful than even me.”
“Which makes her situation even worse.”
“Yes and no. Yes, she might have a bigger range... but she also might have greater control of it, too.”
“Greater control?”
“She might be able to direct it more, perhaps. Turn off parts of it, for example.”
“Your mother... wow. She must have been a sight to behold.”
He looked away. “You have no idea.”
I didn’t need to be a mind reader to know I’d hit a nerve. Or seeing what I thought I was seeing. “You fear her,” I said.
<
br /> “Let’s say that I have a healthy respect for her,” Maximus said. “But I do not fear her, no.”
Except I might have seen otherwise in his eyes. Something had flashed across them. Something furtive. It was, I was certain, the first and only time I had seen the Librarian display anything but quiet strength. Something deep inside me chuckled. It was a feminine chuckle that devolved into an animalistic growl. That this thing was within me was nearly too terrible to comprehend.
“Comprehend it, Sam. Understand it. Bear it. You have to. You are, quite frankly, single-handedly keeping one of the most dangerous people to have ever walked this earth at bay.”
“No pressure there or anything,” I said.
He smiled lightly, and the nervousness he had displayed was gone. “Nothing you can’t handle, Sam. Remember, you are much more than her.”
“My Hermes bloodline.”
“That and more.”
“My own soul,” I said.
“Yes, Sam. Your pure and loving soul is no match for the darkness within her.”
I paused, cocked my head, for I heard the words clearly. “She says she will break me. She will find a way. And I will be gone. Forever.”
Some of the color drained from his face. “She is wrong, Sam. You can’t believe her.”
“I don’t,” I said. “I just packed her down even deeper.”
I looked at him, and he looked at me too. He gave me a small, sad smile. I gave him the same small, sad smile. Finally, he said, “You are here about the creator?”
“God?” I said.
“No, your client.”
I blinked at that. “My client? Charlie Reed?”
“Yes, Sam. He’s a creator, and we need to talk about him. Now.”
Chapter Seventeen
Allison and I were jogging.
“So you’re telling me you’re just like me then?” she asked, phrasing the question only slightly differently than the six other times she’d asked it.
“Insecure? No,” I said.
“Sam...”
“Look, I’m not a witch, and have no desire to be a witch. I’m not even sure what the hell a witch does.”
“Now you’re just being mean. You’ve seen what I can do.”
“And you’re just learning,” I said. “And you’ve been at this, what, a couple of years now?”
“There’s lots to learn. Lots of spells. Lots of memorizing—”
I waved my hand. “Nope. Not for me.”
“According to Millicent, you used to be quite good at it.”
“And she knows this how?”
Millicent was, of course, was part of Allison’s triad. Millicent was also a ghost. She was also, apparently, once a good friend of mine—we all were—down through the ages, in various incarnations, living as witches on the fringes of civilizations.
“Not always the fringes, Sam. But we were rarely, if ever, accepted. We did what we had to do, to stay alive. Historically, witches weren’t exactly looked upon favorably. And to answer your question, Millicent has access to information we don’t readily have at our fingertips.”
“Because she’s dead,” I said.
“Right. She has read each of our Akashic records. She knows exactly what we have done, lifetime after lifetime.”
“Sounds like she has a lot of time on her hands.”
“You don’t like Millicent,” said Allison.
I shrugged, which might have been lost during the jogging. “She sounds like a know-it-all.”
“She does know it all! She’s in spirit. She has access to knowledge we can never fathom—”
“Doesn’t seem too hard to fathom a trio of witches running around a bubbling cauldron in the forest.”
Allison slapped my shoulder. “You’re just mad because Millicent doesn’t want me to speak with you.”
I shrugged. “I agree. She’s a bitch.”
“I didn’t agree she was a bitch!”
“You were thinking it.”
“Sam Moon. You have no idea what I’m thinking these days.”
“Right,” I said. “Because of the know-it-all bitch.”
“Well, you can be mad at her, but you damn well know that her motives are well-meaning. The thing inside you—”
“Elizabeth,” I said, surprised at how quickly I was defending the ‘thing’ inside me, and realizing just how deep my annoyance with Millicent ran.
“Well, we can’t have Elizabeth privy to what we are doing. We aren’t exactly on the same side, you know.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but there was no argument. Allison—and freakin’ Millicent—were right. Elizabeth heard everything I heard, despite how deep I stomped her down into my psyche. And each day, while I slept, Elizabeth was free to roam and divulge any secrets I might have been privy to, including Allison’s thoughts.
“You were great friends with her, Sam. She told me that you and she were even closer than you and I are now.”
I was about to make a snide remark that maybe Allison and I weren’t as close as she thought, but I caught the hurt look in her eye. Allison was my best friend, and I trusted her with my life. Simple as that.
“And I trust you, Sam. With mine.”
I nodded, and we continued jogging, the full afternoon sun hitting us at an angle. I felt... uneasy, but nothing I couldn’t handle. Without this magical ring, I would be feeling a great deal of pain. Now, I just ran with a bearable sense of discomfort.
I glanced at Allison. “Millicent and I were really as close as you say?”
“Yes, Sam. And it breaks her heart that we aren’t together again and that...” she let her voice trail off.
“We will never be together again?”
“Yes, Sam.”
“How’s Ivy working out?”
“She’s eager. Impetuous. Gifted. So far, a good fit. But, according to Millicent, we’re not quite as powerful as we had been with you. The three of us, Sam... the three of us could take on whole armies in the past. Could take down kingdoms. You should hear Millicent’s stories of victories.”
“And of our defeats?”
Allison nodded. “There were many of those, too. And most were not pleasant at all.”
“Why doesn’t Millicent come around?” I asked.
“I asked the same question, Sam. Although she is getting better and better at manifesting—and there are times you would swear she was a flesh-and-blood woman—she doesn’t feel that she is strong enough to...”
“Resist Elizabeth?” I asked.
“Resist you, Sam. She says there will come a time when you will fully utilize all that Elizabeth can offer you—and powerful, wide-ranging telepathy will be part of it.”
I opened my mouth at that, then closed it again. “How does she know that?”
“As a spirit... she has access to possibilities.”
“Like Nostradamus?” I asked.
“Something like that, yes. She has seen a number of possibilities for you, Sam. And in one of them, you have fully accepted all that Elizabeth can offer you.”
“You mean Elizabeth has taken me over?”
“In one such scenario, yes. In one, you have lost, and Elizabeth has won. But in another... in another, you are a sort of a team, and you are damn near impossible to stop.”
“Jesus,” I said, and as I uttered the name, I felt a shift in me. Elizabeth didn’t like the name Jesus. She shied away from it, sinking deeper into the darkness. Good to know.
We jogged in silence, and I found myself thinking long and hard about a trio of witches, born together throughout the ages, fighting the good fight against the powers that be—and a darker enemy yet. Millicent had purposely come forth into this incarnation before, and lived a full, rich life, all while Allison and I bided our time... wherever spirits bided their time. Heaven? Yes, maybe. The plan this time around had been to have Millicent available to us in spirit—and thus available to far more knowledge than we would normally have access to. It was a noble plan... until I w
ent and got turned into a vampire. Never fear, there was an understudy in the wings, a fourth girl who was often reincarnated with us, a sort of helper. That fourth girl was Ivy Tanner, and thus she was invited to take my place. I wasn’t sure I liked her either, come to think about it.
“I think it’s cute when you get jealous, Sam.”
“Oh, shut up.”
She grinned and jogged easily next to me. Her caramel skin glistened. My own mostly pale skin glistened too. I felt sunburns come and go, come and go, over and over and over again. But yet my skin mostly remained alabaster white. When I finally got out of the sun, any sunburn that lingered would disappear like water evaporating on hot pavement.
“Tell me about your client,” said Allison. “The creator.”
And so I did. According to the Librarian, there were only so many creators. Most creators didn’t know they were creators. More often than not, they tended toward the arts; in particular, writing and filmmaking, although a handful of them had created particularly immersive video games. The particularly immersive part was the key, for the creators among us had a unique gift. A very, very unique gift.
“They create worlds?” asked Allison, grabbing my arm and pulling me to a stop. She had timed it perfectly, for there was a short, wind-blown, stunted tree next to us. We each opened our water bottles, took a swing, and leaned against it.
“It’s complicated,” I said. “But that’s the whole of it.”
“You mean real worlds?”
“I mean real worlds. It’s complicated,” I said again.
“Then uncomplicate it, Sam. Because this is big. And it’s kind of freaking me out.”
I explained it as best as I could. According to Maximus, there were only a half dozen or so creators in our world at any given time. Almost none of them were aware of their talents, which was not necessarily a bad thing.
“They are accidental creators?”
“In a way, yes. Although their works of art are no accidents.”
“Sam, I need to be clear here. Are you telling me that Charlie Reed, the guy we met just the other night, can create... people?”
I took another swig of water and grinned at her. “Not just people, Allie. He can create whole worlds.”