He didn’t bother to look at the mess it made of his enemy’s head; he stepped over his body, moving further into the fog, claiming the one extra yard of territory he’d gained. Already the next enemy drew near. Raph couldn’t see him but a red laser light sweeping through the waste heralded his approach. Raph felt heat when the beam settled on him, and he threw himself backward into the dust as a pulse of energy blasted forth from his enemy. It missed him but caught the gun he was holding, and as Raphael landed on his back on the ground, the liquefied plastic of the gun’s body melted onto his hands, scalding them. He cried out in pain and managed to dislodge his fingers from the steaming wreckage just in time to roll out of the way of another blast.
He looked up just as the fog parted and was able to make out what looked like a half-person, half-robot. A laser beam flowed from the single eyespot on its helmet, scanning for Raph. It looked a little like the guy in those old Robocop movies, he thought—except this was the real thing. A real cyborg commando, a warrior of the future, was coming at him.
He reached out to send a Shen blast its way, but came up empty and was forced to roll out of the way of another sonic blast. Raph didn’t know what kind of gun it was, but it emitted a shot like a wave of distortion flowing through the air. It looked kind of like a heat mirage rising from the blacktop on a hot summer day.
Diving behind a boulder, he dodged another blast as the laser sight scanned past him. With no other weapons and no way to get close to the enemy without getting liquefied, Raph grabbed the only thing he could—the large stone he was hiding behind. His muscles protested, quivering as he lifted the heavy rock above his head with both hands and cocked back to throw it. As the laser scanner zeroed in on him, he chucked the rock at his enemy’s head, then dove to the side to avoid the blast he knew was coming. The shot liquefied the rock in mid air, and something that looked like freshly mixed cement splashed onto the visor of the cyborg. It cooled instantly, leaving his laser sight covered by a crust of solidifying rock. Shrieking with fury, the creature fired but the shots went wild. As Raphael charged, they liquefied the ground right in front of him, turning it into a pit of simmering quicksand. Raph jumped over it as his blinded adversary blasted away, hitting nothing. Somehow Raph managed to avoid the deadly shots until he was close enough to touch his enemy.
“Hey R2D2, I’m right here,” he said, and the cyborg jerked his gun toward the sound of Raphael’s voice. As he did, Raph grabbed his forearm and, using his enemy’s own momentum, swung him into the pit of molten sand. The cyborg hit feetfirst then lost his footing and fell on his back, sinking down with a cry of anguish until only his groping, metallic hands were visible above the quickly congealing quicksand.
Raphael grabbed the discarded energy gun and took another few steps into the fog. He was on the top of a low rise now, and he could see several more cyborgs coming toward him through the haze. He vaporized one, then another, then another with the gun he’d captured, demolishing thirteen of them by the time the gun’s charge finally gave out. He was moving down the rise when the fog parted again. This time he saw that he was atop a slope that led down into a valley filled with futuristic warriors—hundreds of them, or thousands, or maybe hundreds of thousands. He stared at the sea of enmity and violence for a moment and then closed his eyes. He’d done this before, during slight pauses in the battle, just taking an instant to replenish his inner store of energy with a little micro-meditation. Now as he did so, he felt Shen filling him as never before, and within it, there was a message.
It wasn’t a message from some outside source, from Master Chin or from the All or from the Magician, even. It was from within himself, maybe his subconscious or his higher self, maybe even his soul—whatever that was.
As long as you are willing to fight, enemies will come. There will always be another opponent, another confrontation, another injustice to right, another insult to avenge, another reason to go to war. You can keep fighting forever.
It was true. Raphael understood that instantly. He could keep on going like this for all eternity, and it would never stop. But that wasn’t what he wanted.
The only way to stop fighting, he thought, is to refuse to fight. The epiphany struck him with such weight that it made him dizzy, and giddy excitement replaced his exhaustion.
Raphael looked down at the gun in his hand and cast it aside, and then he fell to his knees. The new wave of opponents was grinding its way toward him now. They were monstrosities of flesh and robotics, drone-like death machines, small, bizarre tanks that seemed to breathe. He saw these horrors approaching and opened his arms wide, as if to embrace them. He saw the gun barrels pointed at him, the titanium teeth, the steel blades, the missile tips.
He took a breath and shouted across the desolate plains with all the power his voice could muster: “I will not fight!” he yelled. Then, even louder, “I WILL NOT FIGHT!”
For an instant, he was overcome with the terrifying thought that this was the end. His enemies would now destroy him, and he would die. Then, in a crunching of gears and a clink of armor, their advance stopped. All his mighty futuristic opponents stood before him, gloriously powerful, ominously deadly—and completely, totally still.
Raphael was still, too, except for his chest, which was heaving with exertion and fear. Then the wind shifted, the fog swept fast across the valley, and his enemies vanished. For a moment, there was nothing but the roiling mist. Then, through the fog, he heard footsteps, and he saw the silhouette of a tall, thin man approaching through the eerie half-light. It was the Magician.
At the sight of him, all the weariness Raphael had somehow miraculously held at bay during his battles hit him at once with such crushing force he could hardly stand upright or keep his eyes open. He had no energy and no patience for the Magician’s mockery now.
“All I wanted was to get back to Middleburg,” Raphael said.
The Magician nodded approvingly. “But now you understand.”
“Yeah, I think so,” Raph replied. “If I keep fighting, it’ll never stop. It’s like a cycle. Like . . . a wheel. I attack them, they attack me, I attack them. It just keeps going around and around. The only way to stop it is to quit fighting. Is that what I was supposed to figure out?”
“There is no ‘supposed to,’” the Magician said, his voice deep and strangely grating. “You either learn, or you do not learn.” He turned and inhaled, as if sniffing the damp, slightly acerbic scent of the fog. “Some have spent eons lost here on the battlefields that border the Dark Territory. And you are correct; you can remain here fighting for all of eternity. Or you can simply . . . stop.”
The thought of being damned to an eternity of fighting terrified Raphael. He wondered how much time he had already wasted. “So what now?” he asked.
“What is it that you want?” asked the Magician. “You can go to any time and place you wish, now that you’ve learned what you needed to know.”
“I want to go home—to Middleburg. I’ve got to get back to Aimee.”
“Ah, yes—Aimee. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. How do I get to her from here?”
“The journey will be arduous and fraught with danger,” the Magician warned.
“Fine,” Raph said. “Been there, done that. Bring it on.”
“Reach into your right pocket and take out that piece of crystal.”
Raphael took out the ring shard and held it in the palm of his hand. At first nothing happened. Then, after a moment, the shard began to glow. He stared down at it, mesmerized by the depth of its brilliance. When he looked closely, he saw that it was not just a glowing piece of crystal. The light inside it looked like photos he’d seen of nebulae in space, vast, multicolored, many-faceted clouds of swirling illumination, infinitely beautiful.
When he looked up, the train had appeared behind the Magician. The fog that haunted the landscape seemed to be pouri
ng from its high, broad smoke stack. The door to its cab stood open, waiting for him, and the Magician gestured toward it.
Raphael closed his hand on the ring shard.
“Can the train take me anywhere I want to go? Any time, any place?” he asked.
The Magician smiled. For once, his expression wasn’t mocking or creepy, but kind. “Some say that if you board the train with an open heart, it will take you not where you want to go, but where you need to go. Do you have the faith to try it?”
Raphael looked at the Magician, then at the glowing piece of the ring in his hand, then at the waiting train. “Go ahead,” the Magician told him. “Make your wish. It will take you where you want to go . . . eventually.”
“What do you mean by that?” Raph asked suspiciously.
Again, the Magician smiled his mysterious, enigmatic smile. “Only that you may have other stops to make along the way.”
Chapter 13
Standing behind Rick and Bran as they waited for Violet Anderson to come to the door, Orias noticed what a nice day it was. It was unseasonably pleasant for this time of year and the steel-gray skies of winter had given way to a pale blue that was filled with the twitter of robins and sparrows. Though he usually dreaded the whiplash of endless adjustments that marked his life of near immortality, this time he would welcome the change of seasons. Because, he knew, the changes coming to Middleburg with the arrival of spring would be more than warmer days, tender new buds and flower blossoms. If all went well, this would be the season he and Aimee would be bound together forever.
But there were still hurdles to overcome. Aimee’s sleepwalking incident had made that clear. If she had twisted that doorknob a little further she would have released Orias’s father, and once freed, Oberon would first vent his rage on his traitorous son and send him to a place worse than hell. After that, who could guess where his vengeance would end? He might very well decide to destroy all of Middleburg, or all of humankind. Even in the Dark Territory, there were few who understood the full extent of Oberon’s power. Before Orias had locked his father in the tower room, he’d done his research, and he knew that releasing Oberon now would have devastating repercussions.
Aimee’s dreams were proof that despite the protections Orias had put in place, his father’s power was beginning to seep out. She was probably susceptible to his psychic pleas because she was close by, and because the Lethe tea had weakened her judgment. Orias should have realized long before that Aimee would have the power to break the imprisoning spell he had cast on the tower room.
Something had to be done. He had to silence his father completely, forever, and he knew that Uphir was the only one who might know how to make that happen. He had to contact the doctor, but to venture below before he had the shards of the crystal ring in his possession was too risky. Oberon’s Irin brothers despised those like Orias. They considered the race of half-human, half-angel Nephilim lower than mongrels—and if any of the Fallen spotted him, they would make him pay. They would imprison him and torture him for eons, simply for being what he was.
He needed a messenger, and who could be better than Rick? Anyway, it was about time Rick started getting acquainted with the Dark Territory.
At last, they heard the sound of footsteps from inside and then, within the tiny, convex window of the peephole, the light changed almost imperceptibly.
“Hi, Mrs. Anderson,” Rick called out. “It’s Rick.”
There was a slight pause, and then, “What do you want?”
“I called,” Rick said pleasantly. “Remember—about the stuff for the rummage sale.”
Another pause. “Who are those people with you?”
“My friend, Bran—he’s on the team, too. And Orias. He’s a friend of my dad’s. They’re in business together. He’d like to meet you, if that’s okay.”
Silence. Orias repressed a sigh and summoned his patience.
“Why?” asked the voice.
Orias pushed past Rick and said through the closed door, “Because I’m a great admirer of art, and I’ve heard about your wonderful tapestries. I’d love to see them.”
“Who told you about them?”
“We have the same framer,” Orias told her. Of course they did—Vivian Gonzalez was the only framer in town, and in truth, she’d told Orias about Violet’s unusual designs weeks ago, when Orias had shipped some of his paintings from New York to hang in Elixir. But Orias didn’t have time to go into all that now. He needed her to open the door. He would do it himself but that was impossible. The magic that protected this place was more powerful even than the spell he’d placed on the tower room. There was no way that any Irin, Nephilim, or demon could penetrate it unless its owner invited him in.
He focused all his powers of persuasion on her, bringing his energy into a fine point, like the focus of a flashlight beam shining through the little peephole and into Violet Anderson’s brain. He felt his skin begin to warm up, almost igniting with the heat of the energy coursing through his veins. “Please,” he entreated gently. “Let me come in.”
He held his breath, waiting, and then he heard the sounds of locks being released and bolts sliding back. He sighed in relief as Violet opened the door. For a moment, she eyed him warily, but when her gaze moved to Rick and Bran a big smile lit her face, recapturing for a moment the great beauty she’d once had.
“Rick . . . so good to see you,” she said, opening the door a little wider and standing aside so they could enter. “Sorry for the delay. I don’t get many visitors these days. One can’t be too careful, you know. Come in, boys, come in.” After Rick introduced her to Orias she said, “So nice to meet you. You’re a friend of Jack’s?”
“I am,” Orias replied, noticing that the color rose in her cheeks a little as she said Jack’s name, and he knew that they’d once been sweethearts. “He sends his regards.”
A dreamy look came into her eyes for a moment. “He was my escort the last year I was Middleburg High’s homecoming queen. Did you know I was homecoming queen for three years in a row?” She took them into the sitting room, invited them to sit, and offered them coffee. “It’s all ready,” she said. “I got it all ready—with some cookies too—right after Rick called. They’re store bought, but they’re really good. I don’t do much baking anymore.”
“No thanks, Mrs. A,” said Rick. “We’re kind of in a hurry. Got to get the stuff back to the school. If you don’t mind, we’ll just let ourselves out the back door, grab it, and be on our way.”
“Oh . . . I guess that’s all right,” said Violet.
“You guys go ahead,” Orias told Rick. “I’ll catch up with you later.” He turned to Violet. “I’d love a cup of coffee,” he said. “And those cookies look delicious. Chocolate chip?”
While Orias continued charming Violet, Rick and Bran left and quietly made their way down the hall. Violet poured the coffee and put two cookies on a little plate that she passed to Orias.
“It has been so long since I’ve entertained a handsome young man in my living room,” she said. “Do you know my daughter, Maggie?”
“We’ve met,” said Orias. “She’s a lovely girl.”
After he’d suffered through half an hour listening to Violet’s insipid stories of her glory days at Middleburg High, she finally said, “All right. You can see the tapestries. Come right this way.” She led him through the little foyer and into a long hallway with an impossibly high ceiling. Huge, colorful tapestries hung on the walls on both sides.
Slowly, he walked the length of the gallery, gazing at each one in turn. When the framer had told him about them and she’d mentioned that their creator had been homecoming queen three times, Orias had known exactly what they were—the prophetic works he’d read about in his mother’s books.
It was fascinating now for Orias to see them for himself. They were more engaging and interesti
ng than he’d imagined them. The figures depicted in them seemed almost alive and several times, when he looked away, his peripheral vision caught movement within the scenes, as if they were changing all the time—but in a way that was difficult to perceive if he was looking directly at them.
As he walked down the hall, the story of Middleburg played out before his eyes. It was a tale that few living mortals would understand, but it was one Orias knew well, not from his father who shared almost nothing with him, but from the secret books his mother had hidden away in the basement of their home in Manhattan before she did.
He saw the founding of Middleburg by the Order of the All, in a time now forgotten by human history. He witnessed an ancient queen’s coronation, when the Harvest Crown, now Middleburg High’s homecoming crown, was first placed upon her head. He saw the construction of the Wheel of Illusion, a massive undertaking completed by the angels, when they were all exalted, before any of them fell.
In the beginning, there had been four Wheels of Illusion, created by the All so that humans, when they were ready, could move forward in their spiritual journey and join the glory of the Light. During the most recent celestial war the fallen angels had battled against those that remained in the service of the All—and the spoils were the souls of humans. The exalted angels had prevailed in that last final battle and the fallen ones had gone into hiding. During the fighting, three of the Wheels—those located in what were now China, Israel, and Ireland—were destroyed, and the four staircases that led from the Wheels up into the heavenly realms were sealed to prevent the fallen from ascending to conquer the Heavens.
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