by Obert Skye
Eric
“Who’s Eric?” Rin asked.
“He was the man who interrupted that meeting with Charles,” Sigi answered.
Ozzy stared at the note. Then he slowly set it down and looked at Rin.
“I told you this could become painful,” the wizard said with compassion. “It’s not too late. You can try to return to the cloaked house and spend your days hidden and safe while living off the memories and hope of whatever you wish. Or you can read what’s there and most likely see things that will provide answers . . . but also conjure up dark things that you have waded through your whole life.”
Ozzy took a moment to breathe. Clark flitted up and parked himself on the top of Ozzy’s head.
“Wow,” Randall said. “This is some heavy stuff you wizards do.”
Ozzy picked up the papers, folded back the first page, and began to read.
By the time Ozzy had finished reading the pages aloud, a few prominent points stood out. Emmitt and Mia were brilliant and perhaps a bit . . . mad? They had discovered a formula that could help people have better control over their own free will. The formula had the potential to cure apathy and misunderstanding. They wanted to build a perfect world where everyone was able to think their way into prosperity and happiness.
They had tested the solution on the unsuspecting patrons of their dinner parties. After a few initial snags, all signs indicated that the formula worked perfectly. Then on one of the final tests, Timsby had not done what he was supposed to do and instead jumped into a polar bear cage and almost died.
They stopped all testing completely, but Emmitt’s half-brother, Charles, had caught on. He had seen the endless potential for the formula to control others for his benefit. Like his own father, he longed to be in control and make decisions that weaker people couldn’t make themselves. He wanted his half-brother to team up with him and, in a sense, rule the world. But Emmitt wanted no part of that.
The two half-brothers fought and Charles tried to kill Emmitt.
Finding no other option, Emmitt and Mia moved out in the dead of night. They took their child, their belongings, and hid themselves away in the cloaked house where nobody could find them.
The second-to-the-last page had information on how Charles had found them. He had tracked down the bill of sale that Emmitt had signed for the cabin and land. It had been difficult to find, but with a little bribing and the right access to files he shouldn’t have had access to, he deciphered the mystery.
In anger and greed, he took Emmitt and Mia and brought them to a bunker in New Mexico, leaving Ozzy for dead. He tried to force the two doctors to recreate their formula, but they refused. Charles didn’t know how to handle defeat, and in a fit of rage, he ended their lives.
The ten pages contained a lot of words, but it was the line about Charles ending his parents’ lives that stood out most to Ozzy. It read like a punch to his gut, a kick to his head, and a red-hot poker to his heart. The answer he had wanted for so many years had been given . . . and there was no giving that knowledge back.
“I am so sorry, Oz,” Rin said.
“Me, too,” Sigi echoed.
Clark scratched at his head affectionately.
“It’s okay,” Ozzy said, composing himself. “I’ve always wanted them to still be alive, but I’ve always known that was impossible. They would have tried everything to get back to me, but it never happened. It just isn’t fair that the only family I’ve found happens to be the very person that has made my life so difficult and painful. Charles came to the cloaked house, stole my parents, and left me for dead. I was seven and he was my uncle. How could someone do something like that?”
“Power,” Rin said. “What your parents created could make a person very wealthy and very powerful.”
“Who cares?” Ozzy snapped. “What is power, anyway? How could humans care so much for something that ultimately destroys everything? He ruined my family and murdered my parents. And because of that, I’m alone in the world.”
“Wait a second,” Clark said defensively. “What am I?”
“Sorry. I know I have you.”
“You have more than just Clark,” Rin said. “But it must feel very empty finally putting the pieces together only to discover that the picture is grim. This is the worst kind of truth to discover.”
“At least I know now. But what do we do?” Ozzy asked passionately. “I mean, are these papers enough proof? Can we use them to get Charles prosecuted? He killed my parents.”
“No,” Randall chimed in. “They’re just papers. Now, if we had the testimony of this Eric fellow who dropped them off, you might have a chance.”
“I know this is freshly festering within you,” Rin said, trying to make his voice sound extra comforting. “But I don’t think you should worry about revenge. Charles wants that tape and I have a feeling he won’t stop until he gets it.”
“Then don’t you think that now might be a good time to cast a spell?” Ozzy said angrily. “Can’t you just put an end to this by making his legs fall off or his head explode? What about your ad in the ORVG? Can you at least make him fall asleep? I hired you to make this better. You said two days and you’d have things in order. Well, things don’t feel like they’re in order.”
“Things are just what they need to be. And remember, need is rarely comfortable.”
“What does that even mean?” Ozzy asked, trying not to sound like a complete jerk in front of Sigi. “Should I not need anything anymore? Should I just destroy the tape? Will that make everything better? Will it bring my parents back? Will it punish Charles? I don’t think so.”
“You’re right,” Rin agreed. “But that tape gives us leverage and we should use it to our advantage.”
“Really?” Ozzy said hopefully. “What kind of leverage?”
“First, we need to find a safe place to hide it. We’ll let Charles stew tonight, and in the morning we’ll call him and set up a meeting on our terms. Now that we know everything we do, he has no advantage. So we’ll bring him a tape—a tape that will be secretly recording him. It’s not beyond my powers to trick him into confessing what he did.”
“You are pretty good at making people talk,” Clark agreed.
“I was on the debate team in high school.”
“You were?” Randall asked.
The old wizard looked at his much-older dad and sighed.
“Sorry, Brian . . . I mean Rin.”
“It’s fine, I got over that years ago.”
“If it makes you feel any better, Grandpa, I didn’t know he had been on debate either.”
“Thanks, Sigi, it does.”
Despite all of the dysfunction, Ozzy was a little jealous of the family relationship that Rin and his dad and Sigi sort of had.
“For now, let’s—”
“Shhh,” Ozzy said, cutting the wizard off. “Do you hear something?”
Randall looked around nervously.
“It sounds like someone’s walking around in your backyard,” Ozzy whispered.
Rin turned the lights off and Clark moved to the safety of Ozzy’s hair. Everyone held their breath for a moment trying to hear.
The sound of rocks quietly crunching as something moved around the back and the front of the house drifted through the room.
“Maybe it’s Eric,” Ozzy said in a hushed tone.
Clark flew to one of the blanket-covered windows and found a small hole in the corner near the top. He gripped onto the blanket with his talons and pressed his left eye up to the hole to look out into the dark night.
He flew back quickly and sat on Ozzy’s left shoulder.
“Um . . . I don’t know how to say this, but there are dozens of men in green closing in on the house. That’s bad, right?”
“Horrible,” Ozzy said.
“Get out of here,” Randall said kind
ly. “Go before they catch you. Get in your car and get out of here.”
“What about you?” Rin asked.
“I’m old and couldn’t care less. Maybe I’ll die tonight, maybe I won’t. Either way, I’m okay with that. Now go.”
Everyone looked at Rin.
“What do you say?” Ozzy asked while trying to breathe quietly. “Should we take one more car ride?”
“I think we should. I’ll be back, Dad.”
“Go be the wizard you were born to be,” Rin’s troll-looking father said.
It wasn’t the most touching moment, but at least they weren’t arguing.
“Oh, and son,” Randall added. “If this is what it’s like to be a wizard, then I have severely misjudged your path in life.”
Rin smiled, looking more like a little boy than an old wizard.
“Come on, you guys,” he said, leading the way out to the garage.
The three of them and their bird got into the car and buckled up.
“So how’s this going down?” Ozzy asked.
“Well, Quarfelt taught me many things. I learned my first spells there. It was also the place I found my wand. But of all the lessons I learned, I think the one that sticks with me most is the advice a wizard named Umfuss gave me: ‘Sometimes there is need for thought. Other times, a wizard is most powerful with action.’”
Rin turned on the car, threw it into reverse, and stomped on the gas. The car smashed through the closed garage door, sending it flying out and onto the ground. The little car rolled over the garage door and down the driveway as dark green figures dove out of the way. Once on the street, Rin slammed on the brakes and put the car into drive.
“Hold on! This could get crazy!”
“Like it already isn’t?” Ozzy asked.
“I guess you’re right. Oh, and Sigi—don’t tell your mom.”
The three eccentrics and Sigi drove out of the neighborhood and onto the freeway without any sign of anyone chasing after them. Clark was in the back window keeping a lookout with Sigi by his side. A light rain began to spit on the windshield.
“Why aren’t they coming after us?” Ozzy asked. “It makes no sense.”
“We surprised them,” Rin said. “They had to scramble just to get into their cars.”
“Here they come,” Clark cheeped. “And there’s way more than one this time.”
Ozzy looked out the back window and saw five black SUVs racing up from behind. The freeway was wide and filled with other vehicles, but the SUVs were flashing their lights and forcing everyone to pull over and let them through.
Rin had the small white car going as fast as possible. He wove between other drivers and shot east on the I-40 freeway towards the mountains.
“Where are you going?” Ozzy yelled.
“I’m not sure, but a wizard would rather be confused in the mountains than concerned in the city.”
“We’re going to be confused either way,” Ozzy shouted. “Do you think that formula my parents invented really worked?”
“It must have,” Rin hollered. “It was enough to cause your parents to give up everything and hide in Oregon. It was also enough to cause your uncle to do the things he’s done—and is doing.”
The SUVs were getting closer. They took up all four lanes and made it look like a giant wall of black was rolling towards them.
The freeway began to head into the mountains as the rain picked up.
“There’s too many of them,” Sigi said. “I like not being bored, but I’m not crazy about this either.”
“And we can’t lose all of them,” Ozzy pointed out needlessly. “This isn’t going to end well, is it?”
“So now you can see the future?” Rin asked. “Stop witnessing things that aren’t even there. Too many of you humans are scared by ghosts that haven’t yet formed. The future is as much ours as it is Charles’s. More so, actually, because you’re in the company of a wizard.”
Rin passed a small red truck and a yellow van.
“One of the SUVs is getting closer,” Clark tweeted.
Rin looked into his side mirror and saw a single black vehicle break away from the pack and close in on them. It pulled alongside their car. The windows of the SUV were darker than the night they were driving though.
“What are they doing?” Ozzy yelled.
The passenger window rolled down to reveal a large man with a tight haircut and mean eyes. He motioned violently with his hand for Rin to pull over.
“I have an idea, “Clark said. “Roll down the back window just a bit.”
“Why?” Ozzy asked.
“Just do it.”
Ozzy found the button on his door and rolled the back window down two inches.
“Get ready for a beak-down!”
Instantly Clark shot through the window and into the open window of the SUV.
The bird bounced around inside the vehicle like a possessed pinball. He knocked the driver’s glasses askew and broke a tooth of the large goon with the mean eyes. Ozzy and Sigi couldn’t see everything, but they saw that the SUV was having a hard time trying to maintain control. As the driver batted at the mechanical assailant, he pulled at the steering wheel and the SUV twisted so sharply and at such a fast rate of speed that it flipped onto its side and went skidding across the freeway.
Rin kept his eyes on the road and his pedal to the floor.
Out of the rear window, Ozzy and Sigi watched as the other SUVs slammed into the sliding one and a giant multicar pileup began to form, SUV after SUV running into each other. They plowed into the sides of the freeway, creating a dam of cars that blocked all four lanes and the shoulder.
Only one of the SUVs had managed to miss the mess that Clark had brought down. That vehicle didn’t stop to check on all of its fellow thugs. Instead, it picked up the pace and continued to give chase.
“Wow!” Ozzy said. “Clark knocked out almost all of them with one blow. There’s still one coming, though!”
“I can see that,” Rin said, looking up at the rearview mirror.
“What about Clark?” Sigi hollered. “We can’t just leave him!”
“That bird’s resilient, and we can’t stop now,” the wizard insisted.
“I would have stopped for you,” Clark said.
The bird had darted back into the window and landed on the top of Rin’s headrest.
“You would have needed to come back for me,” Rin yelled. “I’m nowhere near as capable as you.”
“So you saw what I did?” the bird asked.
“Yes, and it was highly impressive.” Sigi stroked the small wiry feathers on top of Clark’s head while looking out the back window. “There’s only one car left.”
“It better hope it doesn’t pull up next to us,” Clark said, sounding tough.
The single SUV drew in closer.
“We can’t outrun that thing.”
“I’m not planning to. Here comes our exit.”
Rin swerved right and took the Cedar Crest exit off the freeway. The SUV’s tires screeched and whined as they followed suit. Rin drove down the off-ramp and right through the light at the end of the exit.
“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”
“Maybe,” Rin said confidently.
The wizard followed a turn in the road that carted them north behind the Sandia Mountains and into heavier rain.
The SUV followed.
They were on a small highway driving towards the crest of the Sandia Mountains. Their vehicle passed a few stores, an old burnt building, and a couple of other cars, but otherwise it felt like a private racetrack that they and the SUV were racing on by themselves.
The black car tried a couple of times to come up alongside, but Rin’s maneuvering of the poor little car kept them at bay.
“I don’t know what to th
ink!” Ozzy yelled.
“About what?” Rin replied.
“Sometimes it seems like you have all of this chaos planned out.”
“Unfortunately, that means that sometimes I don’t.”
Rin turned sharply onto a road. Through the windshield wipers they saw a sign that read “Sandia Peak.” It was dark and they were surrounded by trees as they headed into the forest and up the mountain.
“I feel better already,” Rin said. “Trees make a wizard complete. Did you know that there isn’t a single part of the Quarfelt landscape that doesn’t have a tree within view?”
“What? Do you know we’re being chased up a mountainside by maniacs in the rain?”
“Seriously, Dad, where are you going?”
Rin swerved to pass a single slow-moving car.
“We can’t just drive and hope they run out of gas,” Ozzy said. “Or hope that we flip onto a train, or that a bird makes it all better.”
“Why not?” Rin asked.
“Yeah,” Clark said, feeling personally slighted. “Why can’t a bird make it all better?”
“I’m not saying you can’t,” Ozzy said, frustrated. “You already have, but at some point we are going to have to realize that we are out of options and should just . . . just—”
“Give up?” Clark asked.
“No!” Rin shouted kindly. “I think the word Ozzy is looking for is hide.”
“Oh,” the bird said, disappointed that his guess had been wrong.
“Listen, Ozzy, what happened to you as a child was horrific. But the time to run away is over. You were a child and you took that fear and used it to exist in the most amazing way. You’re better today because of it. I’m not looking to drive into these trees and hide until the problem goes away. I’m looking to solve all of this right now.”
It began to really rain. In the distance lightning flashed.
“Perfect,” Rin said cheerfully.