The Painter Mage: Books 1-3

by D. K. Holmberg

  As it was, I could only detect certain aspects to the patterns used. There was strength and focus, but there was a delicate skill mingled in, as well. Not just any painter had done this. An artist, someone with true talent.

  I released my power. It went out with a pop.

  “What did you find?” Jakes asked.

  Could he tell when I used my magic? Were the shifters able to tell when I stopped? I knew Devan could, but if Jakes could, as well, that made the shifters even more dangerous.

  “There’s a lot of juice here,” I said.

  “Nice, Ollie,” Devan said.

  I stood and shook my head. “That’s not what I meant. Actually, this guy is pretty dry, so there’s really not a lot of juice.” She shot me a warning look. “Anyway, this was the work of a painter. Pretty powerful one, too.”

  “For patterns like that—” Devan started.

  “Yeah. Not sure who did this, but he—or she—is probably an artist. Has to be for me to need that kind of power.”

  “Maybe it was a message?” Kacey suggested. “The way the body was burned, don’t you think that’s a message?”

  I looked over at the young shifter. I thought her young, but I didn’t really know. With shifters, she could be much older than she looked. “You mean, like in a movie? What would the message be, then: Don’t fuck with the artist?”

  Kacey only shrugged.

  “Would Tom have anything to do with this?” Devan said.

  Jakes glanced at her. “You know of Tom?”

  “I told her,” I said to Jakes. “You know I share pretty much everything with Devan. But it’s not Tom. I mean, I don’t really know what kind of painting power he’s got, but he told me he was a tagger. That he’d been trying to learn from my father. This was an artist.”

  “Like your friend Taylor?” Jakes asked.

  “Taylor is a painter, but she wouldn’t kill anyone.” Jakes arched a brow at me. “All right, maybe she tried to kill you—”

  “And open the gate where the nightmare hell creatures could come through,” Devan said.

  “Invisible nightmare hell creatures,” I corrected. “But why would Taylor do this? She doesn’t really know anyone in Conlin, does she?”

  Jakes circled around to the other side of the body and crouched down next to it. “Maybe not, but she might be able to help us determine who did.”

  It was a good idea, but one I wasn’t sure Taylor would be interested in helping with. She’d been held up in Conlin longer than she wanted already, and now we were adding a murder investigation that would definitely slow her down.

  “Yeah, I’ll see,” I said.

  Power emanated from Jakes. For me to feel it meant there was great power being used. I couldn’t see what he did, only that it washed over the body before dissipating.

  Jakes stood and turned to Kacey. “Find Tom. He will need to know about this. I’ll have someone keep an eye on the diner in the meantime.” She loped off, disappearing around the corner of the building. “Will you find her?”

  “So I’m not a good enough consultant anymore?”

  He looked back at me with an expression of complete disinterest in my jokes. I was afraid that if I didn’t make light of it, I might begin to understand the severity of what happened here. A painter used his power against another to kill. That just didn’t happen on this side of the Threshold.

  I glanced at Devan and shrugged. “Guess we’re going to find Taylor.”

  “Super,” she said. “She’ll be thrilled you’ve found another reason to avoid returning to Arcanus.”

  2

  Conlin isn’t a big town, but big enough that you can get lost in it. It’s got the usual chain stores for places this size, the Target on one end of town and the old K-Mart on the other. In between, there’s a bunch of local businesses. Restaurants scattered along Main Street mixed with other shops. I’d always wondered why the Rooster had been on the edge of town, not even near any of the chain stores to draw traffic. Now that I knew a bit more about what it was, it made sense. I still didn’t know what my father had done to make the Rooster a safe magical place, but then again, I didn’t really know all that much about the Rooster.

  Devan and I rode in Big Red, the old Ford F-150 that we’d found in the garage when we returned to Conlin, somehow still able to start. Another gift of my father’s. I don’t think he used the old girl quite the same way that we did. The protections in it had saved us on more than one occasion.

  Devan had fitted the truck with patterns around the wheel and through the transmission, working them in such a way that I could increase the protections around the truck. I suspected they would help us go faster if needed, too, but I’d never tried using them that way. Even with me doing nothing, the patterns themselves made the truck nearly indestructible. It had survived Adazi’s attack when pretty much everything else had gone to shit.

  For my father, it had been nothing more than a way to get around town. I remembered that when he’d been around, he mostly left it parked, rarely taking it out of the garage. He probably used the bed of the truck to carry his little projects, though I doubt even this beast of a pickup could have carried some of the statues he’d placed throughout the park. Certainly not Agony. That damn thing was massive, larger than I am, and terrifying in a way that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

  “Where do you think she is?” Devan asked.

  “Same place she’s been most of the days I leave her alone.” Devan glanced over at me and I shrugged. “She seems to think there’s something she hasn’t discovered there. Considering my father had a hand in laying it out, she might be right.”

  “The park?”

  “The park,” I agreed.

  “You’ve been quiet since we left the Rooster,” Devan said.

  I shrugged. “It’s nothing.”

  Springs creaked as she shifted on the cloth blanket covering the seat. “Nothing. That’s why you’re staring so intently at the road.”

  I turned onto Thistle Street. It was an older street and pitted in places that had been filled with tar over the years, making for a bumpy ride. It didn’t help that Big Red really didn’t have much in the way of a suspension system, either. A few brick homes were set back from the road. Newer homes along here were small and sided with vinyl. A few were painted wood, but none were kept up all that well. This was the part of Conlin money seemed to have overlooked. Groves of old trees grew unchecked along the street, only trimmed where the power lines needed to run through. Most were oak or elm, but a few sugar maples scattered along the street with leaves already starting to turn red. The rock border of the park sort of grew up out of the ground, the river rock used to construct the wall holding up better than it had any right to do.

  “What is it, Ollie?” she asked.

  “Maybe the murder is bothering me more than I realize.”

  “You’ve seen death before today, so I know it’s more than that.”

  Leave it to Devan to get right to the heart of the issue. She’d been with me longer than anyone else. Without her, I would never have survived what the Trelking planned for me. I might never have mastered the use of arcane patterns without her. But our connection went deeper. She was a friend, and I’d never been all that good at making friends.

  “Painters don’t kill painters.”

  She arched an eyebrow at me.

  “Well, Adazi might be the exception, but as few of us as there are, we don’t need to go attacking each other, especially on this side of the Threshold. I thought I’d be done with that over here.”

  “Painters aren’t always so good to each other, you know. And I’ve seen you use your magic to kill.”

  “That’s different, and you know it. When I’ve used my power, there was always a protective element to it. There’s a certain spirit to painting, a purpose that comes from creation. Using it like that?” I took a breath and squeezed the steering wheel, feeling the patterns press into my palms. “Then there was the pattern on t
he chest,” I said, making a shape in the air of a triangle bound by irregular lines. “It would take special skill to power that pattern.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve been trying to figure out why it bothered me, and I think I understand.” I glanced over at her. Devan looked at me with an earnest intensity. There was nothing of the bullshitting we usually gave to each other. It was the way she looked at me when we discussed crossing the Threshold and returning to Conlin. “It’s not a single pattern. I mean, it is, but it isn’t. And it’s not arcane, either.”

  “You’re saying it’s some kind of super pattern?”

  I slowed as we approached the park and stopped near the arched entryway. My house was on the other side, and I could have parked there, but then we’d have to walk through most of the park to reach the spot I figured I’d find Taylor. I wanted to find her and get back to the Rooster as quickly as I could to see what she might be able to tell us about the murder.

  “I don’t know what I’m saying. Only that it made me uneasy. I’m just hoping Taylor will recognize it.”

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  “Then we have to let Jakes do his sheriff stuff.”

  “Didn’t you say you wanted to be his consultant?” she asked.

  I grunted, popped the door open, and jumped out of the truck. Devan followed me, and I noticed her watching me with a worried frown as we started into the park. It was still early, but the massive trees growing throughout the park left it cast in shadows. Dampness from a recent rain hung on the grass. I stuck to the paver-stone pathway leading toward the central plaza of the park where Agony of the Chase, an enormous sculpture left to the city by my father, had been turned into a decorative fountain. I was always amazed that some of the locals thought it a good idea to splash through the fountain, as if aggravating the demon sculpture was really a good idea. There was power trapped within Agony, though I had never really understood why.

  I scanned the park, looking for signs of Taylor. If she was anywhere in the park, it would be here. I’d seen her attempting to draw Agony, but there was something about the sculpture that defied attempts to recreate it well. The few drawings I’d seen of Taylor’s told me that if any artist could come close, it would be she.

  “Ollie,” Devan said.

  I craned my neck to see what she wanted. She crouched over the fountain, staring at something hidden there. “What is it?”

  She waved a hand at me, motioning me toward her. It didn’t take long for me to see what drew her attention. Normally, water spit out of the mouth of Agony into a pool where some played and others simply used as a wishing well. Today, the fountain was off. I thought someone had simply turned off the water, but the pool had been drained, as well.

  Devan reached into the pool and scooped up a handful of change, letting it run through her fingers. She rubbed the coins together, making a face as she did.

  “That’s someone’s luck you’re messing with there,” I said.

  “You really think these coins bring anyone luck?”

  I glanced at Agony. From this angle, his long jaw looked as if he were trying to scream, gagged by the hose that fed water into his mouth. Sunlight reflected off the gray metal my father had used in sculpting him, giving the hard lines and angles a strange shimmering quality. It only made the sculpture look more menacing.

  “Well, it was someone’s luck,” I said. “And they don’t need you in here messing with it. Bad enough they chose a stupid place like this to make a wish, they don’t need one of the Te’alan jinxing it.”

  Her face hardened, and she crossed her arms over her chest, obscuring the logo on the T-shirt she was wearing. Her fingers worked absently, wiping on the shirt. “First you talk of luck, and now you talk of jinxing? What are you, a five-year-old?”

  I stuck my tongue out at her before turning away from the empty pool and scanning the park. “See any sign of Taylor?”

  “If I did, do you think I’d be standing here with slimy fingers?”

  “Probably,” I answered, turning back to her. “I’ve seen some of the things you put in your hands.”

  “Watch it,” she said and came at me with her hand outstretched to slap me.

  She slipped or tripped and fell forward. Had I not been there, she might have hit her head on the sculpture. I managed to catch her just before impact and swung her away in something like a dance move. I’m graceful like that.

  “See? Agony doesn’t want you doing that, either,” I said.

  Devan glared at me and checked her boots, frowning as she did. She leaned down and tied the laces, cinching them tight. “Let’s find your girlfriend and get back to the diner.”

  “Thinking of letting Jakes watch you eat another burger?” I asked.

  “After seeing that body, I’m not in the mood to eat much of anything.”

  We put some distance between the sculpture and us, and stopped at the edge of the trees. Agony sat in the center of a large, stone plaza with trees all around it. At night, the four lamps stationed around the plaza would shine toward the sculpture. I’d made certain to infuse something a little extra special into the lighting that gave me additional power here, but otherwise, the entire park seemed to have been planned by my father.

  After Taylor came, we learned that he used the other statues placed throughout the park as a way to hide a doorway, a magical gateway much like the one I took when crossing the Threshold into Devan’s world, but one where invisible nightmare hell creatures, creatures that lived outside of the Trelking’s realm on the other side of the Threshold, tried coming through. Taylor remained convinced that there was something else to the statues that we’d missed. Her studying the statues made Jakes nervous. Understandable, considering what he’d lost the last time she activated them.

  We found Taylor near the far north corner of the park. She stood beneath a pine tree in front of the obelisk statue made of the same silvery metal as the others, the one where it seemed two cubes merged atop each other, partly buried in the ground. She held a pad of paper open in front of her and worked with a pencil as she sketched the shape of the statue.

  “Hey,” I said.

  Devan snorted softly behind me, and I turned so I could give her my best stink eye.

  When I turned back, Taylor had looked up and smiled at me. She had olive skin and nearly black hair streaked with blue. She wore a jacket that accentuated her curves and tight jeans. “I’m about done here. You didn’t have to come looking for me.”

  I stood next to her and looked over her shoulder at the drawing. There are two types of painters—taggers and artists. Taylor is definitely an artist. Every time I thought I’d seen something from her that was impressive, she went and managed to outdo herself again. The level of detail on the drawing was amazing, even catching the way the shadows slipped along the statue. I would have only managed a crude representation compared to hers.

  “Find anything new?” I asked.

  Taylor tapped a series of symbols she’d added to her drawing. They weren’t visible now, but with the right infusion of power, they would become clear on the statue. That was how she’d managed to summon the gate. I still wondered if she knew what she’d been doing when she summoned it; she had figured it out awfully quickly.

  “Nothing that I haven’t seen before. I tried a few of the other patterns your father left in the book.” She flipped the page in her notebook and tapped on the patterns she’d tried. They might be from my father’s book, but I could only reproduce some of them. The book walked a painter through how to make them, sort of like a guidebook for dummies. Taylor didn’t seem to need the guidebook like I did. “I thought that if this one summoned”—she pointed to a pattern—“then maybe these would have a different effect.”

  “Do they?”

  She shook her head and pushed strands of loose blue-tinted hair back behind her ear. “Nothing. They do nothing. I still haven’t figured out why the Elder included them in the book.”

  �
��Why did the Elder do half the things he did?” Devan asked. She kicked at the sculpture, and her boot connected with a solid thud.

  “You don’t care for the work of the Elder?” Taylor asked. She sounded shocked that Devan would even imply something like that.

  Devan gave her a look dripping with annoyance. Taylor didn’t know Devan well enough to recognize it. “I think the Elder is fine. Apparently, he’s like most fathers, isn’t he, Ollie?”

  Taylor’s eyes widened.

  “Anyway,” I said, “there’s something I need your help with.”

  She lifted her gaze away from where she worked on the patterns and met my eyes.

  “We were at the Rooster, and… Well… this is something you’ll need to see.”

  Taylor took another look at the sculpture and took a deep breath. “Can I try one more thing?” she asked.

  I glanced at Devan who only shrugged. “Why not?” It wasn’t like the body was going anywhere. With the amount of magical power that had been used to kill whoever had died, there wasn’t any real risk that it would dissipate too quickly for Taylor to be able to figure out what happened.

  She took a pinch of blue ink from a glass vial and rubbed it carefully between her fingers, reminding me of how Devan had looked while wiping the slime from her fingers. Then she brushed the tips of her fingers across the obelisk, sliding them in a quick pattern. I recognized the pattern; it was another one of my father’s and one toward the end of the book that I hadn’t quite mastered. I could do most of them, but working through them took me a long time and made my hand cramp. For some reason, I didn’t have the same difficulty with making the arcane patterns I often used.

  With an infusion of power, the pattern flashed for a moment before fading. Taylor let out a frustrated breath and started to turn away. As she did, the obelisk rotated.

  We all froze in place. Even Devan, and nothing ever seemed to faze her. “Did I just see that?” I asked.