by Sam Cheever
I threw a wad of tissues aside. Used. Ugh! A scarf. Maybe I could strangle him with it? Nah. A small sewing kit. Hand lotion. Lip balm. Gum. A protein bar. I’d have to snack on that later if I lived. Pantyhose…seriously? A crossword puzzle book. Nasal spray. I squirted that at the Demon. Nothing. Keys. I tried jabbing him with those but they couldn’t penetrate the dense scales. A pad of paper. I searched for the pen. Maybe I could stick that in his eyes. A handful of coins. I flung those at his face. A wallet. Empty. Figures. The pen! I jabbed it toward the Demon’s face but he jerked back, smacking my hand so hard the pen went flying.
Dancing Demon digits!
Saliva hit my arm, burning like acid against my skin. The Demon lowered its head, teeth fully bared. He was going to bite me!
I dug more frantically. Mace! I sprayed him in the eyes and the monster reared back, shrieking.
Gotcha!
My hand closed over a pair of nail scissors. I yanked them out as I scrambled out from under him. I looked at the creature’s horns and back at the scissors.
There was no chance they’d cut the two-inch-wide horns.
Then again, the tips were much skinnier.
Any cutting at all should distract him, right?
The Demon started to rise, I had to move fast. I jumped onto his back and quickly snipped the tip off one horn.
He roared, tossing his head back and nearly flinging me off.
I tried to reach the second horn with the scissors, but he was flailing around too much. I was clutching him like a monkey clinging to its mother, shrieking with fear.
A clawed hand raked down my arm, slicing me open from elbow to wrist.
I was so soaked in adrenaline I barely felt it. Grabbing the horn with my bleeding hand, I tried to bring the other hand over to cut it with the scissors.
Blood slicked the surface, causing the scissors to slip out of my grip.
In sheer desperation, I gritted my teeth and yanked at my magic. It surged forward, filling my palm with dense silver light. I slammed my hand against the horn, sending a thick stream of burning energy right into the tip I’d cut.
The Demon’s head slammed up on a roar, clocking me hard on the chin. I went down. My head bounced off the hard-pack dirt, and the edges of the world grayed as my mind started to shut down.
My fingers found something in the dirt and wrapped around it as I fought the darkness, battling for consciousness.
Footsteps clomped closer. A face appeared above mine, judgmental green eyes assessing me. “Good idea,” Sebille said, snatching the thing I’d been clutching out of my hand.
I lay there a moment, panting. When the wooziness finally cleared, I shoved upright, my head screaming.
I focused my gaze on Sebille just in time to see her zip tie the last demon, smacking him on the head with an energy-infused palm as he tried to rouse himself enough to fight her.
She tromped over and looked down at the mess of stuff in the dirt. “Oh, lip balm!”
15
The Epicenter of a Nightmarish Despotism
“Who carries zip ties in their purse?” Sebille asked. “It’s pure genius.”
“It’s an endless stuff artifact,” I told her, smiling. I’d finally figured out why the purse was an artifact. No matter how many times I jammed my hand into the thing, new stuff always appeared to fill it. I finally stopped when I pulled a pair of men’s boxers from the purse. Ew! “Now, spill it,” I told the Sprite. “How’d you find us?”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the Book of Pages. It expanded as it hit the air, becoming the full-sized book. “Maude did a temporary spell so it would cross dimensions. But we need to get back within twenty-four hours or the spell expires.”
I frowned.
She frowned.
I lifted my brows.
She rolled her eyes. “What?”
“I can’t leave yet. I have a culprit or an artifact to find.”
Sebille slid a look toward the goat. “The cows are home with the Blues. There’s the goat. You finished the job.”
“No. I finished the job Farmer Blue hired me to do, but we still don’t know why the wrinkle happened.”
“A quirk of fate?”
I shook my head. “I think somebody’s orchestrating another Dark Rages.”
All the blood left her face, leaving behind a lot of pale skin and freckles. “That’s a terrifying thought.”
“It is, I know. It might all be my imagination, but I don’t think it is.” I filled her in on my conversation with Walt.
When I was finished, Sebille was frowning. “Okay, I’ll admit that’s concerning.”
I nodded.
“Any idea how to find the culprit?”
I glanced at the mess from the purse. “Maybe there’s a clue finder somewhere in all that clutter.”
Sebille laughed. “I wouldn’t discount that as a serious possibility. I mean, there’s a Phillips-head screwdriver in that thing, and…is that a banana?”
“I already ate the pears.”
The door slammed and we turned as Walt strode our way. “She’s resting from the healing.” He gave Sebille a shy smile. “That was amazing, by the way. I’ve never seen someone healed before.”
Sebille shrugged, but her face pinkened under his compliment. I eyed them as a horrible thought occurred.
They liked each other.
Chunky cherub chins! Leave it to Sebille to like a boy who lived in an impossible-to-reach dimension.
“Anywhooooo,” I said, my eyebrows peaking. “Walt, we were just talking about the wrinkle. I think someone’s trying to bring on another Dark Rages.”
“And we have just twenty-four hours…well, probably closer to twenty-three hours now…to find the culprit,” Sebille added. “Any ideas?”
“Actually,” he flushed. “Diandra and I were talking about that too. She agrees. And she says she doesn’t think the other Seers left on their own. In fact, she doesn’t think they left at all.”
“Why does she think that?” I asked.
“Apparently, Seers have some kind of connection to each other. Ancient bonding magic. And she says she can still feel the other Seers, all seven of them. But the link is weak and feels somehow muffled.”
“Like maybe they’re locked up somewhere?” Sebille asked.
“Or dead,” I said, frowning. I’d worked with a bonding artifact once. It was presented as a large tube of glue, which, when used to literally bond two people together, created an unbreakable magic connection that stuck even after the glue stopped working on their skin. I’d seized it from a fellow Sorcerer whose special magics included relationship enhancement and marriage counseling. Needless to say, using the sometimes-destructive artifact to bond two unsuspecting humans was against the rules of the Magical Universe. Thus my order to retrieve it.
Walt nodded. “Death would mute the connection but probably wouldn’t sever it completely.”
“But the fact that she still feels them probably means they’re in Plex,” Sebille added.
I nodded agreement. “It seems unlikely the connection would hold across dimensions.”
I glanced around, looking for my little friends. “Where’d Hobs, Wicked, and Slimy get off to?”
“And the goat?” Walt added.
Sebille flapped her hand toward a distant rocky ridge. “Last I saw them, Hobs had loaded the Demons onto the dragon’s back and was instructing her to take them over there.”
I glanced at Walt. “Do you know what’s there?”
He nodded. “It used to be a temporary holding cave during the Rages. It’s been spelled to hold all kinds of magical creatures.” He frowned. “I have no idea if the spell is still working.”
I hoped Hobs knew what he was doing. But if it all fell apart, I was sure that, between the dragon and the screaming goat, we’d have some warning.
“I’ll go check on them in a minute,” I said, glancing at Walt. “I’d like to set a trap for whoever is manipulating the dimens
ional borders. Do you have any suggestions?”
He thought about it for a moment. “Would you agree that whoever it is has to have magic?”
“I’d say that’s the most likely scenario, yes.”
“So, it’s probably someone who came to Plex from another dimension.”
Sebille frowned. “Or during the Rages.”
We both gave her a surprised look. She shrugged. “You said it yourself, they never caught the Wizard who initiated the original Rages. Wouldn’t he be the most logical person to initiate this one?”
It did make sense. “I agree. But if he’s still here, he has to be really old.”
“Wizards live for millennia,” Sebille said. “They buy immortality through black magics.”
Blood magic, I thought with a grimace. I glanced at Walt. “Do you remember why the Wizard started the initial Rages?”
“No. But my gramps might remember. Why do you ask?”
“Because if we can create a similar scenario, or at least make the Wizard believe that’s what we’ve done, we might be able to draw him out.”
“I’ll buy that. But how do we spread the word once we have a plan?”
“I think I can help with that.”
We all turned to look at Diandra as she limped outside to join us. She gave Sebille a bow like the one Walt had done when we’d arrived. I watched her jealously. I needed to get more bendy. “Thank you so much for healing me. I’m nearly as good as new.”
Sebille nodded. “The residual aches should fade over the next couple of days. Just try to rest as much as you can.”
Diandra nodded. She looked at me. “I have some ancient texts about the Dark Rages. They’re written as novels to protect the information inside.”
“Hidden in plain sight,” I said, nodding.
“Yes. They explain the Wizard’s purpose for the Rages. And we’ll hopefully be able to come up with a sufficient goad to draw him in after reading them.”
“Then we’ll need a way to get the word out.”
Diandra gazed toward her fire pit, which had been trampled and covered in fire extinguishing foam after the explosion. “I can engage a general alarm,” she told us frowning. “But not without first setting some protections around my fire.”
“Protections?” Sebille and I asked in unison.
Diandra nodded. “The Demons didn’t cause the explosion in my fire workings. They might have been sent by the same person, to distract and obscure, but my work was destroyed by someone with knowledge of how Seer magic works.”
“The Wizard?” Walt asked.
“I would expect so, yes,” Diandra admitted. “He learned much during the previous Rages. And, if he still lives, I think it’s safe to expect that he has been preparing for this for a long time. He’ll be ready for us to try to draw him out.”
“Then how are we going to do it?” Walt asked.
Sebille’s long, freckled face transformed under a smile. “By attacking his ego. We’re going to tell the big, bad Wizard that we don’t believe in him. And that, even if we did, we’d easily be able to defeat him because he’s just so yesterday’s news.”
Ego. The most plentiful tool in an evil genius’s toolbox. “I agree with Sebille. I think that’s our best option,” I said.
“Good,” Diandra said, nodding. “I’ll start my preparations.” She glanced at Walt. “If you’ll come with me, I’ll find the books about the Rages.” She gave us a smile. “There are three of them. I’m sure you’ll all enjoy the fun-filled adventure stories they contain.”
Sarcasm! I thought. I had a terrible feeling I was about to engage in a marathon of uninspired and probably really boring reading.
The land far beneath his feet festered under a thick haze of ozone-scented magic, the residual fog a clear sign of how prolific his army had been in their use of black magic justice. He scoured the land with his gaze, taking a fierce pride in its devastation. All around him, his black-clad army surged and plundered, taking by force what should have been offered freely to him and his kind.
“Sir?” a graveled voice said from behind.
He didn’t acknowledge his Sergeant’s presence, knowing the man would be down on one knee, his gaze locked on the ground. His soldiers had all learned early on that the Wizard didn’t care to be looked upon. His visage was one of such greatness, only a rare few could be privileged to see it. “Speak.”
“The gate is open. The workings stopped. You may call your legions now.”
The Wizard allowed a small smile to form on his face. High above his head, a fierce dragon, clad in the traditional black armor of the Wizard’s soldiers, enveloped the fleeing opponents in magic fire, sending them into the clutches of the army that waited inside the choking fog.
“Gather the prisoners. Place them in the cells beneath this rock. And then bring her to me.”
I barely kept from rolling my eyes. “A romance? Are you kidding me?”
Across the room, Sebille was draped over the only couch, her story from the Dark Rages open in front of her, and her attention riveted on its pages. She looked up, grinning. “It is a novel, Naida.”
I blew air through my lips. “Are we to believe the big, bad Wizard is going to stop in the middle of his Rages and court the beautiful Princess?”
Diandra said carefully. “There are no Princesses in Plex.”
We all looked at her, seeing the way her eyebrows lifted with unspoken implication. “Attend the meaning behind the stories.”
Right, I said inside my head. The meaning behind the stories. No romance then. At least, not a real one. What else could it mean? Sighing wearily, I realized I’d have to keep reading to figure it out.
“Yes, Sir.”
He returned his attention to the scene far below. Clenched behind him, his fingers twitched with the need to join in the fun. His energy burbled just below the surface of his skin, all but begging him to let it go. But he was saving his energies for what was to come.
And he wished for her to see it. After all, if it weren’t for her, none of this would have been possible…
“Miss?”
My attention jerked from the book, I looked up at Hobs. “What?”
“We’re bored.”
I rolled my gaze over the cat, the frog, and the hobgoblin. “Go outside and play.”
Hobs shook his head. “It’s raining.”
I narrowed my gaze on Wicked, noting the way his tail snapped behind him. He had too much energy and was looking for mischief. When my eyes met his, he jumped up onto my chair and dropped to his back, showing me his belly and then grabbing my hand between his paws and biting my fingers when I tried to scratch the downy offering. “Hey, ouch!” I complained, tugging my hand away. “Where’s Kanish?”
“She’s hunkered down under those trees by the house,” Sebille told me without looking up.
I looked Wicked in the eyes, recognizing that he was the instigator of the current complaints. “Ask her to shelter you with her wings,” I told Hobs.
The hobgoblin’s blue eyes lit up at that, but his expression quickly fell. “But, where will we go, Miss?”
“I don’t know,” I said, wanting to get back to my book. “Why don’t you go play in the caves?”
I fell back into my book, barely noticing when the trio of miscreants left.
She was a tiny thing, delicate and filled with grace, but it took two of his guards to bring her to the top of the ridge, and when they’d deposited her beside him, he’d had to use his magic to keep her from flinging herself over the edge.
The wind whipped at her verdant locks, spinning them around her pale face, so filled with defiance and a passion that looked too much like hate for his comfort.
“Observe what I have done in your name,” he told the spitfire beside him.
She glared up at him, her slender form bending toward the plunging void as if she would fling herself into it through sheer will alone. “You’ve done nothing in my name. It has all been for you. For your prid
e. For your gain. You wish to control the dimensions. To create in Plex the epicenter of a nightmarish despotism. You will not stain me with this treachery. I place it at your feet where it rightly belongs.”
He laughed, unaffected by her words. “Ah, but that is not how history will see it. You will be blamed for the death of your family.” He pasted a sad look on his ugly face. “For the brutal murder of your unfortunate husband.”
Tears sparkled in her green gaze but were forced back through ruthless will. “I will see you dead for this. For all of it. My dearest will not have died in vain. I will lay his death at your feet along with the long list of your other treacheries.”
His laughter filled the night, sending cold terror into the hearts of his victims far below. Above him, the dense night sky roiled with a building storm. But he knew hers were the impotent words of a defeated foe. And nothing would stop him from getting everything he desired.
Nothing. And no one.
He reached out and, with a self-satisfied smile, shoved her off the rock.
“Whoa!” I said. “Okay, not a romance.” I glanced at Walt. “Who is this chick the Wizard killed. He claimed history would blame her for everything.”
Walt looked up from his book, his gaze far away. Apparently, his reading was pulling him into the past, making an impression. “I assume you mean Wilshire Montague.”
“Wilshire, like your town?”
Walt nodded. “She was a Seer. One of our best and oldest magic users. Under her careful touch, Plex blossomed and grew, safe from outside interference and impermeable to evil. But then she fell in love, and her new husband wasn’t quite as immune to the possibilities of evil as she was.”
I nodded, pointing to the pages I’d just read. “The Wizard killed him, right?”
“Yes. And her entire family, all powerful Seers. It was passed through history that she’d killed them all in a quest for power. That she wanted the Wizard for a lover and that she killed herself when he refused her.”