Gambit: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Solumancer Cycle Book 1)

by J. C. Staudt

  The load-bearing beam beneath the bed gives a thunderous crack, and the floor shifts. Heavy attic furniture topples through the hole above to smash ever-widening gaps in the ancient wood. The building shudders. I try to stand, but the room tilts at a nauseating angle and the bed slides into a standing dresser, punching it through the plaster in a perfect standing-dresser-shaped hole.

  I somersault off the bed and follow the dresser into the hallway. Not because I intended to. Because gravity.

  I crash against the dresser, halted by the hallway’s opposite wall. I’m still shaking off the dizziness and trying to get my bearings when a wooden splintering sound roars through the hardwood. I push myself up and stumble down the hallway, passing children’s bedrooms as they shatter and fall away in clouds of plaster dust.

  When a floorboard pops loose in front of me, I trip and sprawl onto my face. There might be time for one last spell before the whole orphanage caves in around me, yet I’m no longer glowing blue. The demon’s blood is all used up.

  I reach back and find, to my surprise, that I’m still wearing my backpack. I plunge a hand through the open zipper and feel around until my fingers encounter the mess of jagged glass at the bottom. I wince and pull my hand out to find my fingertips bleeding and caked in residue from one or more of the broken vials. Mixing residue is great when you know the recipe. In this case, anything can happen.

  A brick crashes to the floor beside me. Two more follow, one landing hard on my backpack, the other on my leg. The chimney from which these bricks fell stands in the adjacent bedroom, ready to collapse at any second. I reach out with my bloody hand and cast a spell, burning off the meager smudges of residue stuck to my fingertips.

  Daylight pierces the disintegrating roof overhead, and all at once the whole structure gives way. We’re crumbling, me and the orphans and the demons and the building itself, and all I can hear are the lives I’ve ended. Not least of all my own.

  Chapter 19

  The Between can be found in many places. They are the places everyone knows are there, but no one ever looks. I’m looking. The interstice spell I’ve just cast has found and pried open a small empty pocket in a neglected closet behind the orphanage’s seldom-used and out-of-tune piano. I tuck my knees to my chest and eggroll a half-turn to avoid the collapsing chimney as it crashes through the floor beside me and buries the piano in the room below, which responds by trilling a dissonant horror-movie chord of destruction.

  The floorboards snap and spring loose, flinging me over the fallen chimney and into the first-floor music room. I hug my knees tight and roll through the landing, stopping only upon the insistence of my battered backpack. I clamber to my feet and reach for the closet door handle, only to have the entire door ripped off its hinges by the collapsing building. That leaves me with two choices. I can dive through the hole that’s left and hope I find the rectangular nook I’ve opened, or I can stand here and get crushed by an orphanage.

  I dive.

  My head hits something hard. My body folds up beneath me, and before I know it I’m crammed into a space the size and shape of a laundry basket. No one else appears to be using it at the moment, which is a relief. It’s cold and quiet and dark, but I’m not unconscious; just dazed to the point of dreamlike indifference. Muffled thuds and cracking sounds arrive as if from far away, like machine guns chugging on a distant battlefield.

  Things feel simpler here. Sterile, like in Durlan’s Pawn Shop. There’s no smell except the scent of nothing; no light but the diffusion of knowing I’m close enough to reach out and touch the world I came from. I’m bloody and bruised and beaten, and my pain feels cramped in the silent darkness. This place is so subtle and well-hidden that even the demons have neglected its use. They’re not bound by the same limitations as I am, but for any demon who might’ve wished to remain on this side of existence, my tiny cubbyhole constitutes a missed opportunity.

  I wait for a long time, aware that to leave would be to find myself buried alive beneath tons of wood and brick and plaster. Whatever happened after I hopped down my proverbial rabbit hole, I can’t imagine it being good for anyone involved. I’m not worried about Ersatz. I never worry about Ersatz. The guy’s a dragon. For everyone else, the outlook is dimmer.

  Speaking of dimness, the lack of light in my solitary confinement cell must be playing tricks with my head, because at some point after all the crashing stops, I swear I can hear car doors shutting. An engine rumbles to life. Tires squeal. Then comes the deep, steady hum of a vehicle in motion.

  When that’s over, more car doors. Footsteps. The sound of locks engaging.

  “Hello?” a familiar voice echoes, accompanied by the skittering of tiny feet.

  “Ersatz,” I call out. “What’s going on?”

  “It seems you’ve managed to trap yourself in this cozy hatbox.”

  “A hatbox? How did I fit into a hatbox?”

  “Strange things happen when you’re Between,” he says. “You are effectively a moose squeezed into a birdhouse.”

  “An accurate description of how I feel right now. Where are we?”

  “We’re at Felita’s. We pulled you from the rubble and fled before the ambulances arrived.”

  “You’re my hero. How do I get out?”

  Ersatz chuckles, a disconcerting sound in the darkness. “Ever pushed a grape through the head of a needle?”

  “That sounds painful for the grape. And the needle, come to think of it.”

  “Therein lies our dilemma. When a portal from the otherside closes, it often leaves behind a fold in the fabric of worlds. These folds are like any pocket of the Between, except they’re larger inside than out. You’ve fallen squarely into such a fold.”

  “This fold is making my legs cramp like a bitch. I don’t even know how I can tell, since the rest of me hurts way worse.”

  “Getting you out may take some doing.”

  “How much doing? I’m supposed to be at the Savage family’s probate hearing tomorrow afternoon. If Arden doesn’t show up, they’ll know something’s wrong.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t think you’ll be in attendance.”

  “I promised them I would.”

  “We’ve learned something that may dissuade you.”

  “Can we work on getting me out of here first?”

  “Certainly. Still wearing your backpack?”

  “Yeah. Nothing useful in it anymore, though.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” he says. I feel him slither into the fold with me and clamber into my backpack through the open zipper.

  “Be careful in there. A bunch of the vials shattered.”

  “You know what hasn’t shattered,” he says. “All these syringes.”

  I close my eyes, crestfallen. I’d forgotten about those.

  “So that’s how you were performing magic without me, and without residue on your hands.”

  “I know what you’re going to say, and I get it. I knew the risks going in, but it was something I needed to do.”

  He replies, but his words are muffled beneath gym clothes and book pages.

  Book pages. The Book of Mysteries.

  “Here we are,” he says, speaking to be heard above his sound-dampening surrounds. “A little help, please?”

  I reach back and pull the zipper all the way around to let the backpack’s contents spill out into the nothing. The grimoire’s spine cracks, and I hear clawed pages being turned. Ersatz hums to himself, muttering as he scans and flips past several passages.

  “How much do you weigh?” he asks at one point.

  “One ninety, last time I checked.”

  “Never mind. Never mind.” He turns the page.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Patience,” he snaps. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

  “I’m trying to get the feeling back in my legs.”

  He ignores me until he comes across something he likes. “Ah. Hmm. Let’s see. What would you say to deliverance by
lubrication?”

  “Tell me what that means and I’ll tell you what I say to it.”

  “I’ve located a spell which will create, in a short period of time, a quantity of viscous fluid sufficient in both force and volume to expel you with minimal injury.”

  “Oh, yeah, I’ve seen that one. Nope. Not interested.”

  Ersatz is already speaking, but he isn’t speaking to me.

  “Ersatz? What are you doing? You’re not casting it, are y—”

  Thick, bitter-smelling liquid washes over me as if I’ve just cannonballed into a deep swimming pool. The deluge shoves me against a round opening too small to fit through. I plug the hole and stick fast while the liquid pushes against me with peristaltic force, stealing my breath and flooding my nose and mouth. Devoid of other options, I curl up tight and thrust my head between my knees.

  That seems to do the trick. With a wet flatulent sound, I spill onto Felita’s dining room floor in a spout of translucent grease. All the stuff from my backpack flows out behind me, including Ersatz, who is riding my priceless Book of Mysteries like a surfboard. He whoops and hollers as the grimoire slides halfway across the apartment on a wave of receding slime before glancing off a kitchen table leg and spinning him overboard.

  I cough the grease from my lungs and wipe my eyes, blinking up at a perturbed Felita Skaargil, who stands over me with her arms crossed despite the oozy current rushing over her bare feet.

  “Yo,” I manage after a bout of coughing.

  “Who’s idea was this?” she asks, surveying the floor I so painstakingly washed and waxed a mere three days ago.

  I point at a dripping-wet Ersatz as he wrings himself dry. “Wish it had been mine, though.”

  Felita is far from amused. “You look terrible.”

  “I hurt everywhere.”

  “At least you’re alive. That’s more than he can say.” She gestures.

  Lying on the hand-knotted antique bidjar area rug in Felita’s living room is Arden Savage’s corpse. His head is skewed at an odd angle from his body, and he’s starting to stink.

  “How did you—”

  “I tackled him so hard we hit the attic wall and went right through. I grabbed him on the way down and broke his neck on the landing. We were outside before the place started to collapse.”

  “He’s dead. I mean… you killed him. You banished the poltergeist.”

  She shrugs. “I guess so.”

  I breathe the biggest, longest, most relieved sigh I’ve ever breathed. “I’d hug you right now if I weren’t half-dead and covered in slime.”

  “I’d resist, even if you weren’t.”

  “What happened to the orphans?”

  She glances at the floor, then at me. “I can’t say for sure all of them made it out, but I saw some of them climbing down from a ledge in the attic. Being up there instead of in their rooms or, heaven forbid, on the first floor, may have saved their lives.”

  “Did the whole place go down?”

  “No. There’s about a third of it still standing. The south wing and the middle section are in ruins, but the north wing is a newer addition and it didn’t go down with the rest.”

  “And the director?”

  “He was a goner before we arrived.”

  “Sick bastard deserved worse than he got.”

  “And those children deserve much better. Which they’ll hopefully get now that he’s out of the picture.”

  I look at Arden’s corpse. “I can’t believe you recovered the body.”

  “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? You lose him, you lose your chance at finding out who sent him. The second he turns up dead, you’re out of luck. Then you’re looking over your shoulder everywhere you go for the rest of your life. They found you once, they can find you again.”

  I pause. “Thank you.”

  “You’re not going to thank me when you see what else we found.”

  “I’m ready for it.”

  Felita goes to her fireplace mantle, where I notice a pile of Arden’s belongings, including his handgun, wallet, and apartment key. She grabs his phone and brings me a dish towel from her kitchen. “Clean yourself up.”

  I wipe my face and hands. She gives me the phone. When I turn on the screen, notifications pop up for a dozen missed calls and voicemails. They’re all from the same four people—Lorne, Carmine, Ava, and Jerry. “Look at the texts.”

  There’s only scattered, mundane communication from brother Lorne and sister Carmine. A voicemail from Lorne about meeting Arden at his apartment this past Sunday, and a text from Carmine about the same thing. From Ava, a single missed call and four recent text messages:

  Ava - Sunday, 4:46PM - Hey, hon. Haven’t heard from you. Sorry about the other night. Call me.

  Ava - Sunday, 10:03PM - Sorry again baby. I just missed you and was looking forward to spending some time with you. I’m sorry I got upset. I know you were tired. Please call me back.

  Ava - Monday, 6:07AM - Hey babe, thinking of you. Have a great day!

  Ava - Monday, 12:22PM - Arden, please call or text me when you get a chance. I’m getting worried. Please let me know you’re ok.

  I check the time. It’s just after three-thirty on Monday. Still time to recover with the girlfriend. Next I check Jerry’s texts. There are only two.

  Jerry - Sunday, 9:30AM - Trying to reach you. Call me back.

  Jerry - Monday, 9:32AM - Wondering how it went this weekend. Call please.

  The other three voicemails are from Jerry, who I assume is the same Jerry who’s trying to inherit the Savage family fortune and appease his three stepchildren with paltry slices of the pie:

  “Arden. This is Jerry. Call me as soon as possible, thanks.”

  “Arden. Jerry again. It’s important that we talk soon. Call me back.”

  “Arden, it’s Jerry Douglas. Need to talk to you. Pretty urgent at this point. Call me asap. Bye.”

  Jerry Douglas, I think. Why does that name sound familiar? There’s something about it beyond him being Arden Savage’s stepfather, but I can’t place it. I brush the thought aside and focus on what matters—the dead body in Felita’s living room. “I don’t get it. What did you find?”

  “Those messages from Jerry,” Felita says. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “You sound like Ersatz now. No, it isn’t obvious.”

  “I agree with Ms. Skaargil,” says a dripping Ersatz as he wades through an ebbing grease slick. “It’s as obvious as the empty space around your tiny brain.”

  I put down the phone. “Care to explain?”

  “The cryptic messages. The lack of details. The urgency of his repeated contacts. This Jerry Douglas person is in cahoots with Arden Savage, and he doesn’t want to discuss it over the phone. You need to call him back. I’ll bet he’s going to ask you for a face-to-face meeting, and that means getting cleaned up and ready for another illusion spell.”

  I groan. “I feel like I got hit by a truck and backed over twice. I can hardly walk, let alone put on the Arden act again.”

  Felita grabs the phone off the table and hits the call button. I reach out for it, whimpering like a little kid whose favorite toy has been snatched by the neighborhood bully. Felita holds the phone to her ear and waits until someone picks up.

  “Hello?” asks the voice on the other end.

  She hands me the phone.

  I give her my most sodden death stare before placing the phone to my ear and saying, “Hey Jerry, it’s Arden.”

  “Arden. God dammit. Where have you been?”

  “Hard to explain. What’s up?”

  “Did you get him?”

  I hesitate. “I’m sorry?”

  “Did you get—where are you right now? Can you meet me at the usual place?”

  “Remind me where that is again?”

  “The coffee shop where we always meet,” he says irritably.

  “Nope,” I say, thinking quickly. “Not there. Somewhere new.”

  His sigh crackles over
the line. “You’re right. The diner on Harding and Jefferson, two blocks from the river.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “How soon can you be there?”

  “Uh… like an hour?”

  “See you then.”

  The line goes dead.

  “What happened?” asks Ersatz. “What did he say?”

  “He asked for a meeting.”

  “And you told him you’d be there in an hour?”

  I stare at the phone, unsure.

  “Get on with it then. Go, go. Move. Shower. Now.”

  “Don’t bleed on my floor,” Felita adds as I stand up and limp past her. “And don’t steal anything while you’re in the shower this time. What am I going to do about this apartment?”

  “No need to worry,” Ersatz assures her. “I’ll have things tidied up in a jiffy.”

  I track slimy shoeprints across Felita’s hardwood floors and strip down in her bathroom. Every inch of me aches or stings or both when I step under the steaming rainfall showerhead. Getting amped for a dramatic performance is the last thing I feel like doing, yet part of me is excited. I’m finally about to start getting some answers.

  Chapter 20

  As soon as I walk into the diner, a man with a thick head of combed silver hair beckons me to sit with him. He’s wearing a navy-blue pinstripe business suit that looks like it’s worth more than I am. It’s way past lunch and well before dinnertime, and the diner is almost empty. The few patrons who are here stare at our table and whisper like Jerry’s got two heads.

  “Glad you could meet me here on such short notice,” Jerry says as I slide into the booth across from him. “It’s harder these days, you know.” He laughs, as if I should.

  That’s when I notice the man in the black suit and dark sunglasses standing by the door with his hands clasped in front of him, a thin beige wire corkscrewing from his earpiece. Who the hell is this guy? I wonder. I also wonder whether he’s going to ask if I’ve gotten taller, only he doesn’t seem like the kind of person who’d care about that sort of thing. “Yeah. So anyway, what did you want to talk to me about?”