The Painter Mage: Books 1-3

by D. K. Holmberg

  “You heading out?” Jakes asked, studying the truck. He looked over at Devan and nodded politely.

  “Errands,” I said. “Anything I can help you with?”

  He grunted. “I’ve been thinking about what your neighbors saw last night. Some kind of explosion of light. You said you weren’t here?”

  I nodded. “That’s right. Got back late.”

  “Anyone able to corroborate that?”

  “Only Devan here,” I said.

  Jakes shifted his attention to her. The thumbs of both hands were hooked into his belt and he considered her with an appraising eye. A slight smile spread across his face without quite reaching his eyes. “You were with him?”

  “I’m not with him, if that’s what you’re asking,” Devan said. She made her way around the truck and stopped in front of Jakes, looking up at him. The top of her head came to his chin and he was nearly twice as wide as her. Still, Devan made it seem like she could overpower him. Probably, she could.

  Officer Jakes watched her for another moment before slowly turning to study the house. “Looks like you’ve got everything locked up.”

  I hesitated. Jakes shouldn’t know what we’d locked up. He shouldn’t be able to sense the protections I placed in front of the door or the charms that locked the garage.

  “Just for the day,” I said. Had I left any other signs that we were leaving for longer? “Why’d you come back, Officer Jakes?”

  “Found something odd. Thought you might want to take a look at it.”

  I glanced at Devan. She just shrugged.

  “What kind of odd? And why would you think I’d want to look at it?”

  Jakes nodded toward the trees along the back of my lot. “Mostly because it’s right off the end of your lot there.”

  I scanned the trees, all too aware of how the marks Taylor had made on the trees left a particular pattern. I might not fully understand the pattern—yet—but whatever she had done drew a palpable energy. With enough time, I might even understand what she did, even if I never managed to replicate it. The longer we got away from the attack that night, the more the energy faded, leaving little more than a stale tang to the air. If I could still sense it, what was it like for Devan? She had a much more acute nose for things like that.

  “In the park?”

  Jakes nodded. “Just past the first row of trees.”

  I could feel Devan readying something strong enough that would knock even Officer Jakes on his ass. As I turned to her, Jakes watched her with a half-smile on his face.

  “Would you come with me?” he asked.

  If I said no, I suspected Jakes would simply disappear. That might be for the best. If he continued to harass us, I didn’t know what Devan might do. And if she attacked a local cop, there would be no returning to Conlin for either of us. That meant running. And I was getting tired of running.

  I made a point of stepping away from the truck and closing the door. Devan shot me a hard glare. “Lead the way.”

  Jakes nodded, as if it had already been decided.

  * * *

  We stepped past the back of my lot, moving beyond the line of trees Taylor had marked. The air changed, growing cooler and earthier-smelling as we stepped deeper into the woods. Jakes moved comfortably, sliding around the tall oaks and weaving between pines, looking like he’d prowled these woods a hundred times.

  Devan snuck up alongside me as we followed Jakes. “I’m not sure about this guy.” She spoke in a whisper, but I couldn’t help but notice Jakes seemed to tense slightly.

  “He’s a local kid,” I said. “Father’s the chief.”

  “You know him?”

  I shook my head. “Heard of him. His father was out to the house a few times after my mother…” I cut off as Jakes paused, staring down at a smattering of loose needles scattered across the ground. “Before I went there. Don’t really know much about him after that.”

  Devan studied Jakes, moving with a careful grace as she slunk around the tree, always making certain to keep Jakes in her line of sight. He nodded to her and flickered his eyes to the ground, a puzzled frown furrowing his brow.

  “What is it, Officer?” I asked.

  It drew his attention away from Devan. No use having more questions about her, especially ones I wasn’t particularly able to answer.

  “You been out here?” he asked.

  I looked at the tree Devan hid behind. A tall oak, maybe taller than most in the woods, but nothing about it seemed particularly interesting. I shrugged. “I’ve been all over these woods. Grew up around here.”

  The smile returned. “Thought you looked familiar. Morris, right?” I nodded. “I think my dad was friendly with yours.” He peered up at the tree, crossing his arms over his chest as he did. “That house of yours been empty for quite a while. Most folks around here thought it’d stay empty. Then you showed up.”

  I shrugged. “Sometimes you need to come home, you know?”

  He tipped his head in a nod of agreement.

  “You knew my father?” I asked. It never hurt to find out more about the Elder. I didn’t remember everything from that time too clearly, probably because of what had happened.

  “I knew of him.”

  I thought that a strange response, but then again, wandering through the park behind my house with Officer Muscles was just as strange. “You know he disappeared about ten years ago?”

  Jakes took a deep breath and looked over at me. His eyes had this full and sad expression to them. “Really sorry to hear that. Must have been hard on you.”

  “I managed.”

  Jakes glanced at Devan. She still stood on the other side of the tree but had backed away from us, giving some space. I couldn’t see exactly what she was doing but felt a soft draw of energy coming from her through the medallion. Even without it, I probably would have picked up on the subtle shift coming from her after all the time we’d spent together.

  Jakes seemed to sense something. He tipped his head and scratched at his arms, slipping around the tree trunk, studying something I couldn’t see.

  “What did you want to show me?” I asked Jakes.

  “Where’s your friend going?”

  I turned to see Devan disappearing between the trees. Figured she’d simply take off. Probably for the best anyway. The way she looked at Jakes made me nervous. There was a mixture of longing and irritation that I’d seen from her before. Last guy she looked at like that ended up nearly dead. “I don’t really know.”

  “Hmm.”

  Jakes followed after Devan, moving more quickly than I would have expected for him. And more silently. I’d expect a man his size would lumber through the woods, but he had a dangerous sort of grace that belied his size.

  “What brought you back to Conlin?” I asked Jakes as I caught up to him. The green of Devan’s backpack flashed in the darkness and glowed with a soft light. I wondered if Jakes noticed as I did.

  “Same thing as you, I suspect.”

  I doubted that. Could Officer Jakes have come back looking for a way to stay alive from the magical creatures that might be after us? Could he have spent nearly ten years battling darkness that most couldn’t imagine? Did he have nights where he wanted nothing more than to curl up and die rather than face the things he had done and the questions he feared would never be answered?

  So yeah, I doubted Jakes returned to Conlin for the same reasons.

  “Cost of living?” I said instead.

  Jakes laughed. “There is that. Plus familiarity. Family. Expectations. You know. And I like the challenge.”

  I looked at him askance, “Challenge? Like trying to figure out what the hell happened to my house last night?”

  He smiled. “You don’t think that’s a worthwhile challenge?”

  I tipped my head in a shrug. Probably not the same challenge as I saw it, but he didn’t need to know that. If Jakes wanted to think some strange explosion—or better yet, some kid wanting to vandalize the old abandoned house—wa
s an interesting challenge, far be it from me to dissuade him from that. As far as I was concerned, it would be better if he let it drop, but even if he didn’t, I figured I could handle a local cop.

  “You still think it was a gas leak?” I asked.

  Devan still hurried through the trees. From the way she moved, I could tell she led us toward the center of the park. I didn’t know why. And I still didn’t know what Jakes had wanted to show me.

  “I never said I thought it was a gas leak.”

  “What do you think happened, then?”

  Jakes stopped chasing after Devan and waved me in a different direction through the woods. Had I not been equipped with my charms and my inks, I doubted I would have simply followed him. Too many bad things happen when following a giant of a man like Jakes, regardless of the badge he wore.

  “Not sure what happened. The marks around the edge of your property are pretty hard to explain. And I’m not yet certain what happened to your house. The paint had never been quite so faded before.”

  He said before.

  I nearly stumbled. How much did Jakes know about the house? For him to know about the color of the paint meant that he’d been there and recognized what the house should have looked like. The idea bothered me, but I realized it shouldn’t. Why wouldn’t the police check on an abandoned house? Likely the neighbors called and complained often enough about it. And then I come and return without much in the way of explanation, bringing a strange girl to town with me.

  But Jakes mentioned the yard first. Something about that raised alarms in my head.

  He nodded toward a large rock on the sloped hill in front of us. A few pine trees ringed the hill, but they didn’t grow too close to the rock, as if giving it space. Jakes stopped in front of it and peered down at it. “You see this before?”

  I circled around the rock. It was set deep into the ground, barely anything more than the top edge showing through. At first it looked irregular, but that was only because of how it rested. As I moved around it, I noticed that it seemed flat and made of an odd shade of gray that looked slick, as if still wet from last night’s rain. It was the same stone that made up Agony.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Thought you might be able to tell me. I came through the park here as I went looking for what happened to your yard, and I stumbled on it.”

  I laughed. “Maybe it’s been here,” I said.

  “Nope.”

  “And you know everything in the park?”

  He fixed me with a serious gaze. Before, his eyes had seemed to glow from sunlight reflecting off them. Now, they were eerily dark, as if pulled back into his sockets. “I’ve been through the park often enough to know what doesn’t belong,” he said. He knelt in front of the flat stone and ran his hand just over the top of it, careful not to touch the stone itself. “This wasn’t here before. Not sure when it came, but seems strange that there was an explosion at your house and now I find this.”

  I knelt next to him and studied it. The slick surface reminded me of Agony, but I’d never seen stone like in that sculpture before. It wasn’t one of my father’s sculptures. Agony was the best known, but there were others around the park, though none quite as impressive. They were set at equal distances from Agony, though beyond that, I had failed to understand the significance of them. With my father, there was always significance, though I didn’t always know what it was.

  Jakes grunted. “You’ve not seen it before.”

  I turned and met his eyes. “Not this one. It looks like the others, though. Same stone.”

  “Not the same. This has no markings on it.” He again waved his hand over the top it. I reached toward it, stretching out through my fingers as I did, but Jakes grabbed my hand and pushed it back. “Careful there, Morris. You don’t know what this is.”

  I laughed. “Maybe it got shot out here by the gas leak.”

  Jakes didn’t find that answer very funny. “It’s possible.”

  I stood and started away. “If that’s all you wanted to show me, Officer Jakes, I think I might go find out where my friend ran off to.”

  “You’re not curious why this would end up here?”

  The thing was, I was curious, but didn’t want Jakes to know. “There are plenty of oddities around Conlin, Officer Jakes. This is just another one.”

  I started off, not willing to wait for his permission to leave. Something about the intensity in his eyes bothered me. I’d seen men like him before, but I couldn’t quite place where. As I walked toward the center of the park and Agony, I felt his eyes on my back. I made a point of not turning around.

  When I’d gone about a dozen paces, a flash of color through the trees gave me pause. I veered off toward it. As I approached, I saw what caught my attention.

  A streak of white worked around the trunk of a tall oak tree. From the way it fit in between the separations in the bark, it could have been chalk or paint, but I knew it wasn’t. It was ink, and like with the pine trees, a layer of clear sap covered it.

  This wasn’t in a simple pattern, not like the blue markings had been. This had been worked in a long, narrow triangle pointing toward the ground. My eyes traced the direction of the triangle, as if it were some sort of arrow shot from the sky, but nothing disturbed the ground.

  If the others had been Taylor, this would be her work, too, except I had no idea what she intended for this one.

  I stood studying the mark when something about the branches caught my attention.

  I followed the lowest hanging branch away from the tree before I realized what it was. The leaves were still green and vibrant, not dried like the needles had been on the lower branches of the pines around my house. Whatever she’d intended this pattern for, she hadn’t triggered it yet.

  Would there be others? There had been at least seven on the trees around my house, though I hadn’t spent much time searching for too many others. I didn’t need additional proof that Taylor’s ability exceeded my own. But if this pattern hadn’t been used…

  I needed to find Devan.

  I hurried through the trees toward Agony. The sculpture had a certain signature, an energy that shimmered in the air. There was something magical about it, but I didn’t know exactly what. Had there not been, I suspected Agony would have been moved years ago.

  When I reached the clearing, I paused. Devan stood on the far side, studying Agony. She held one of her figurines and seemed to be talking to it. Whatever power she used mingled with that coming from Agony, leaving my skin feeling dry and hot.

  Another couple sat on one of the benches. The man was probably in his twenties and had thick, shaggy hair and a scruff of a beard. The woman had shoulder-length purple hair that reminded me in a way of Taylor. They stared at each other, whispering quietly.

  I ignored them. Many people came to the park and sat. Some tried drawing Agony, confused like the rest of us when their attempts failed, while others simply wanted a quiet place to sit. There weren’t many quieter places in the city.

  When I first returned to Arcanus, I’d spent a lot of time just studying Agony, trying to understand the meaning of it. After a while, that had changed to a desire to draw it, but I learned I wasn’t skilled enough for that. I might not be an artist, but that didn’t mean I had no talent. For me to struggle getting Agony right meant there was something about it that prevented me, if only I could understand what that was. In the time we’d been back, I hadn’t managed to figure it out.

  Devan had better luck with her charms. The one I had in my pocket—the blasting charm that would likely wipe out half the trees in the park if I weren’t careful—was in a shape that more resembled Agony than anything I could make.

  Devan made her way across the clearing while I knelt in front of the plate next to Agony. Last night, power had surged through this plate with enough strength to overwhelm anything I could throw at it. Symbols had appeared where today there were none. Now it was nothing more than a plain bronze plate, no different tha
n it had ever been.

  “What did he want?” Devan asked.

  I stood and watched her. She kept her hands in her pockets. Power radiated from her. “Why did you take off?”

  She shook her head. “He didn’t want to talk to me. Said he wanted to show you something.”

  Her response was odd, but I let it go. It wouldn’t be the first time Devan said something odd. “There’s a flat stone he found. He claims it wasn’t there before.”

  “Was it?”

  I shook my head. “As far as I know, it wasn’t. You know how much time we spent in the park when we first returned. I’d know if there were other sculptures there.”

  “Besides the ones we already found.”

  “Besides those,” I said. Something pulled at my senses, as if the protection I’d triggered around the plaza was being tested. Hesitating, I listened but heard and felt nothing out of the ordinary. “There’s something else.”

  She looked over at me. Her hands remained in her pockets and I felt the energy she drew. Something bothered her.

  “I found another mark.”

  “Where?”

  I motioned toward the tree across the park. From where we stood, it was just visible. “Thing is, it’s different than the other ones.” Her eyes narrowed as she waited for me to explain. “With the others, the dead branches told me she’d drawn on the pattern already. With this, the tree isn’t affected.”

  “Yet.”

  “Yet,” I agreed.

  “So you’re saying—”

  I met Devan’s eyes. “It’s possible Taylor hasn’t left Conlin yet.”

  Devan took a harsh breath. Her power built, the amulet burning cold against my chest. “What could she be after?”

  “I don’t know, but it’s about more than that book she stole.”

  Devan’s brow furrowed in a troubled expression. “Think there are other marks on the trees?”

  “If it’s anything like what we found earlier, then yeah.”